The Chanukah Roundup

In honor of possibly the most blatant example of a holiday receiving a battle-field promotion, I give you a Jewish news roundup!

Joel Stein decries the "war on Chanukah", and announces that Jews are going to fight back:

Until Hanukkah gets its proper respect, we're pulling our singers from Christmas albums. No more Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Neil Diamond, Barry Manilow. You'll quickly find you don't have many entertainers of your own when you're at Banana Republic listening to that one Kristin Chenoweth album over and over.

You have deployed your most annoying Gentiles against us: John Gibson and Bill O'Reilly. So forget Al Franken. Once we find the alley that Pauly Shore is sleeping in, he'll be singing the dreidel song outside your house. We'll force storeowners to greet you with a "Happy Hanukkah" -- and not the secular version but the one with the "Ch" in front and all the accompanying spittle.

Alan Dershowitz comments on Jimmy Carter's aforementioned refusal to debate him (along with Carter's amazingly hypocritical whine that nobody will debate him).

The Mormons were going to baptize Simon Wiesenthal after his death. After his representatives said "thanks, but not thanks," they agreed to withhold it (via Bitch, Ph.D).

When a Jewish lesbian marries a Muslim girl with a Catholic mother, wild craziness ensues!

All the Conservative Teshuvot (those that passed and those that did not) are now available online. In particular, Rabbi Tucker's opinion is available here, and it is beautiful.

Did you know that Ulysses S. Grant wrote an order expelling all the Jews from his "military department" (an area that included Tennessee and parts of Mississippi and Kentucky)? UNC Law Professor Eric Muller wrote about the sad event, which occurred 144 years ago (amazingly, when Ed Cone first raised the issue, the first thing one of his commenters did was try and defend the action!). Here is a taste from Muller:

Thus, all Jews in the Department of the Tennessee had twenty-four hours to clear out or be arrested. Grant's order applied indiscriminately to all Jews -- men, women, and children; traders and nontraders; recent arrivals and established members of the community. On its face, it applied even to Jewish soldiers in the Union army. Such a military order would not be seen again until General [John] DeWitt evicted [Japanese Americans] from the west coast eighty years later.

Like the west coast Japanese-Americans, the Jews of the Tennessee complied with the military order. Twenty-five hundred Jews desperately began looking for scarce transport up the Mississippi river and out of the reach of Grant's order. Their departure was rushed and traumatic. One surviving account tells of "a baby almost left behind in the haste and confusion and tossed bodily into the boat" and of "two dying women permitted to remain behind in neighbors' care." Another account tells of a group of four Jews in Oxford, Mississippi, whose horse, buggy, and luggage were confiscated shortly before they were sent away by train under guard. When one of them asked the reason for their detention, he was told, "Because you are Jews, and are neither a benefit to the Union or Confederacy."

To his credit, President Lincoln rescinded the order virtually as soon as he heard it.

American Muslims join hands with the Holocaust Memorial, condemn Iran's "Holocaust Conference."

A fascinating look at some of the events of the Nuremberg Trial.

Women First

Townsfolk on the Ipswich serial murder case:

Residents of Ipswich, once they express their initial shock about the killings, display an undercurrent of resentment. Not just over the serial killer label that now looks to forever be associated with their town, but also the media defining the victims by their profession: as prostitutes. Many in Ipswich are quick to note that the victims were women first. They were also daughters, sisters, mothers and friends to others within this community.

Important to keep in mind.

More On Goode

Pun intended.

The Virginia Representative who expressed great fear at the impending hordes of Muslims who will be democratically elected to Congress (if we don't stop Catholic Mexicans from immigrating) has refused to apologize for his faux pas.

Scott Moss asks: "What are other recent [since 1990] examples of public officeholders expressly advocating discrimination against other groups in terms of fitness for public office?"

I can't remember an elected politician issuing this type of call in recent memory. Perhaps my readers can jog the memory? Or is Goode really on his own in xenophobic lunacy?

Hi Julia!

This post goes out to the one and only Julia--the baddest thing ever to come out of Oakland (Maine).

For those of you who don't know, Julia is a sophomore Carleton student, majoring in Astronauts. She looks Jewish, and likes making wishes on Hershey's Kisses. She hates regifters, and has a propensity to turn people into Eunuchs when she gets mad. People say that Julia is White. She is a close associate with the lethal assassin known only as "The New Market Ninja." And when I said that I was having trouble find something to blog about today, she made the mistake of asking me to blog about her.

So, let's hear a round of applause for Julia! Or she'll chop off your...well, you know.

Love ya, Julia!

Lead Me From The Fear

U.S. Congressman Virgil Goode (R-VA) has a rather interesting view of there being a Muslim in Congress. Here's a letter he wrote to a constituent of his:

Thank you for your recent communication. When I raise my hand to take the oath on Swearing In Day, I will have the Bible in my other hand. I do not subscribe to using the Koran in any way. The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don't wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran. We need to stop illegal immigration totally and reduce legal immigration and end the diversity visas policy pushed hard by President Clinton and allowing many persons from the Middle East to come to this country. I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped.

The Ten Commandments and "In God We Trust" are on the wall in my office. A Muslim student came by the office and asked why I did not have anything on my wall about the Koran. My response was clear, "As long as I have the honor of representing the citizens of the 5th District of Virginia in the United States House of Representatives, The Koran is not going to be on the wall of my office." Thank you again for your email and thoughts.

The emphasis is my own. The xenophobia is Rep. Goode's (rhymes with "food") own. Aside from weirdly linking Keith Ellison with illegal immigrants (He was born in Detroit. And I'd wager money that most illegal immigrants are Roman Catholic), this whole rhetoric of "fear" behind their being Muslims in America (along with their scaaary Koran) is just frightening.

I'd also note that, while I don't think Rep. Goode has any obligation to have a Koran on his wall, the stern, "over-my-dead-body" language he used in addressing the Muslim student is rather disconcerting in its own right.

It's a good thing nobody mistakes the War on Terror for a War on Islam. Because that would make our job a whole lot tougher.

Menachem Begin on Sleep Deprivation

The KGB used it on him while imprisoned in Russia. So, is it torture?

"In the head of the interrogated prisoner, a haze begins to form. His spirit is wearied to death, his legs are unsteady, and he has one sole desire: to sleep... Anyone who has experienced this desire knows that not even hunger and thirst are comparable with it.

"I came across prisoners who signed what they were ordered to sign, only to get what the interrogator promised them.

"He did not promise them their liberty; he did not promise them food to sate themselves. He promised them - if they signed - uninterrupted sleep! And, having signed, there was nothing in the world that could move them to risk again such nights and such days."

.
Yes. Yes, it is.

One last word, from Texas Law Professor Sanford Levinson:

It is foolish to assume that "torture" need involve the rack and the screw (or even waterboarding, which the U.S. seems to be moving away from). It is enough to keep people up for almost literally inhuman lengths of time. Or would anyone seriously argue that the sleep-deprivation apparently visited on Begin "really" wasn't "torture"? If so, what would such an argument be based on, beyond basically juvenile notions--drawn from reading too much action literature--that torture is necessarily restricted to certain kinds of inflictions of pain (or inductions of psychosis) and not others?

I just love having this debate.

Where Race Comes In

The Genarlow Wilson case has been making the rounds in the blogosphere as an example of a breakdown of justice. For those of you who don't know, Wilson, a 17-year old boy with good grades and no prior police record, was convicted of aggravated child molestation for receiving consensual oral sex from a 15-year old girl. He received a mandatory 10-year prison sentence, plus lifetime registration as a sexual predator. A frustrated Georgia Supreme Court upheld the ruling, finding no legal reason why the sentence could be overturned.

One of the interesting wrinkles of the case is that Wilson is Black, while the DA and prosecutor were White. And so sentencing law guru Douglas Berman asks: If Wilson was White, would this case ever had gone to trial?

Eugene Volokh tries to deflect the question:

One can always speculate this way; but it's not clear to me why this is a sensible speculation. The girls with whom Wilson had sex -- the alleged rape victim, and the 15-year-old whom the oral sodomy age-of-consent is supposed to be protecting -- are black, too. (See this story.) As the article paraphrases the prosecutor's view, "Had he not pursued charges against the boys, his critics could have just as easily chastised him for failing to protect the rights of the two black females. 'I'm standing up for African-American victims in this case, as I would for any white victim,' says [the prosecutor] .... 'Calling me a racist denigrates the people who are victims in this case.'"

Harvard lawprof Randy Kennedy had made this point in other contexts as well - since most crime is intraracial, seeing prosecutors or police being tough on black criminals (and the defendant in this case did indeed commit a crime) may simply mean that they're trying to protect black victims. Conversely, an environment in which prosecutors are afraid to take a hard line against black criminals because of the fear of being assumed to be racist is an environment that's not good for law-abiding blacks.

Before I proceed to rip into Professor Volokh, it's important to note that he, along with every other sane-minded individual, thinks that the decision is far too harsh to be justifiable.

However, in terms of dismissing the racial angle as idle speculation, he is far too quick. As Publius notes, this problem is one of prosecutorial discretion. Prosecutorial discretion is a good thing: It would be bad if prosecutors were mandated to try cases like this. But it doesn't do anyone any good when it isn't used--and certainly when it isn't used evenhandedly. Race becomes a factor when there seems to be a split between how Black and White defendants who have committed similar crimes are treated. I agree entirely that since most crime is intraracial, refusing to prosecute Black defendants can be seen as being insufficiently committed to Black victims. This is Volokh's argument, as well as the DA's, since the 15-year old girl in this situation was Black as well. However, I think the argument is inapplicable in two cases: Victimless crimes (such as drug possession), and crimes where the purported victim does not wish to prosecute. The former case strikes me as a situation where this abuse of discretion occurs endemically--Black users getting sentenced to draconian prison terms for simple possession (even as first offenders), while White (especially upper-class White) defendants get treatment after treatment option. In the latter scenario (of which this case is closer), it is difficult to see how the DA is protecting Black victims when they themselves don't want to see the case go to trial. I won't say that is true in every case (one can imagine a victim intimidated into pressing for a case to be dropped), but in the proximate situation it has been made abundantly clear that the "victim" in this case did not want this case prosecuted for entirely legitimate reasons.

The point is, to my ears the DAs claim that he's simply protecting Black victims rings quite hollow. Racial angle aside, cases like this arise, in my opinion, when prosecutors cease seeing their job as being the pursuit of justice and begin seeing it as the pursuit of convictions. Citing "Office Policy", the DA refused to ask that Wilson receive "first offender" status, despite the fact that he had no prior criminal record. The judge agreed, reportedly, because the other five defendants did have criminal records(!?!?). In a system where prosecutors have discretion, we have an obligation to be vigilant in ascertaining that this discretion is not abused to benefit certain classes of person at the expense of others. It appears that this is a problem in the jurisdiction in question:

But there are also other cases of adults--white adults--prosecuted by the Douglas County District Attorney's office for sex crimes involving minors and received far lighter sentences than any of the teens in the Douglasville Six case.

Case in point: Jack Stewart, a 24-year-old volunteer coach at Heirway Christian Academy in Douglas County, who received 30 days in jail and 10 years probation for fondling the 15-year-old daughter of a couple whose house he was living at temporarily. McDade notes that he objected in court to the "inappropriately light" sentence.

In the case of 26-year-old George Tsimpides, First Offender status was extended in a sex crime. Tsimpides received 20 days in jail after he pleaded guilty to luring a 15-year-old girl he'd met on the Internet to Arbor Place Mall with the intention of engaging in sex with her. McDade says he publicly objected to that sentence.

The D.A. himself has not been immune to sexual misconduct charges. In 1995, two female employees who worked in his office claimed McDade sexually harassed them, creating a "hostile work environment." The charges were later dismissed. McDade insists they are irrelevant. "According to the summary judgment, I won completely and they lost completely," he says.

These cases, according to the Douglas County chapter of the NAACP, point to a pattern of discrimination. The civil rights organization, which has led rallies in support of the Douglasville Six, contends that if the young men involved were white the charges would have been dismissed. "The D.A.'s office is caught up in that good ol' boy syndrome, misapplying a law that was never meant for teenagers," says chapter president Kimberly Alexander.

(Unless I'm deeply mistaken, just because McDade won on summary judgment does not mean he didn't harass female employees, it just means that the manner in which he did it does not have a legal remedy. Any lawyer out there want to confirm?).

At the very least, what we have here is a breakdown in the justice system, where it ceases to be "just" and becomes a mere conviction machine. Georgia has a problem if it cannot tell the difference between two teenagers, two years apart, engaging in oral sex, and child molestation (the law has since been changed, but the state explicitly (and inexplicably) refused to make it retroactive). This is a case that begs for executive clemency. This man should not be in prison.

By the way, here are the stats on teen oral sex rates.

Our Bad

If this doesn't make you feel comfortable with our detention system in the war on terror, I don't know what will!

One night in mid-April, the steel door clanked shut on detainee No. 200343 at Camp Cropper, the United States military's maximum-security detention site in Baghdad.

American guards arrived at the man's cell periodically over the next several days, shackled his hands and feet, blindfolded him and took him to a padded room for interrogation, the detainee said. After an hour or two, he was returned to his cell, fatigued but unable to sleep.

The fluorescent lights in his cell were never turned off, he said. At most hours, heavy metal or country music blared in the corridor. He said he was rousted at random times without explanation and made to stand in his cell. Even lying down, he said, he was kept from covering his face to block out the light, noise and cold. And when he was released after 97 days he was exhausted, depressed and scared.

Yeah, yeah, I know. He was sleep deprived, subject to "harsh interrogation methods," blah blah blah. Nothing new here right? Wrong.

The detainee was Donald Vance, a 29-year-old Navy veteran from Chicago who went to Iraq as a security contractor. He wound up as a whistle-blower, passing information to the F.B.I. about suspicious activities at the Iraqi security firm where he worked, including what he said was possible illegal weapons trading.

But when American soldiers raided the company at his urging, Mr. Vance and another American who worked there were detained as suspects by the military, which was unaware that Mr. Vance was an informer, according to officials and military documents.

If we can't figure who our own operatives are in these operations, how the hell are we supposed to know if we're detaining run-of-the-mill innocent people?

[A Pentagon Spokewoman] said officials did not reach Mr. Vance's contact at the F.B.I. until he had been in custody for three weeks. Even so, she said, officials determined that he "posed a threat" and decided to continue holding him. He was released two months later, Lieutenant Fracasso said, based on a "subsequent re-examination of his case," and his stated plans to leave Iraq.

This is what "posed a threat" has been reduced to? I know that this administration is not a fan of whistleblowers, but this is ridiculous.

Oh, and by the way--perhaps this is just me being Jewish, but I always find it particularly creepy when people are assigned numbers in place of their names. It is a classic dehumanization strategy, there is no purpose behind it other than to make it easier for guards to brutalize their wards, and it has no place in American policy.

Vance says he's suing Rumsfeld. I have no idea what the legal merits are here, but at some point there needs to be some accountability--criminal accountability--for the violations Rumsfeld and his ilk have approved against our own citizens.

Hungry For More

Jonah Goldberg:

I could swear Ted Kennedy said this morning on Fox News Sunday that some 36 million Americans go to bed hungry every night and 12 million of them are children (I'm quoting from memory). He insisted that the numbers were on his side. I'm sorry, but does anyone think that's even remotely true? That systemic hunger is a chief symptom and problem of poverty in America? Come on.

Heehee...that Ted Kennedy. So ridiculous.

The Food Research and Action Center, October of 2005:

The Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) announced today that a new U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) report based on Census Bureau surveys shows the fifth consecutive annual increase--and by far the worst increase since 2000--in the number of food insecure Americans--people living in households suffering from hunger without resources to purchase an adequate diet. The total number of people living in food insecure households in this country went up to 38.2 million in 2004. This number included 24.3 million adults (11.3 percent of all adults) and 13.9 million children (19 percent of all children.)

So it appears that Kennedy was right on the money (indeed, unless the numbers dropped over the past year, he lowballed it).

If these numbers are absolutely unfathomable to Jonah Goldberg, then mayhaps that's a sign that our nation needs to be a tad bit more aggressive in the fight against hunger and poverty. Like Goldberg, I find those numbers unbelievable. Unlike Goldberg, I suspect my initial response isn't to deny (or minimize: "Kennedy's Definition of 'Hunger' is 'food insecure.' For what that's worth.") the data but rather to press as hard as possible to address the problem so that we can reduce this blemish on our national honor.

Via Matthew Yglesias.

10% Is Nothing

One of the more popular "race-neutral" alternatives to Affirmative Action is the so-called "10% plan" adopted by Texas in the wake of the Hopwood decision. In essence, it automatically grants admission to any Texas state university any student who graduates in the top 10% of his or her class. It has effectively mantained diversity at Texas Universities--mostly because there are enough heavily segregated schools where nearly all of the student body (and thus, the top 10% as well) is Black.

However, as Ilya Somin powerfully demonstrates, 10% plans are worse in nearly every possible respect than traditional affirmative action plans--even hard quotas. Traditional affirmative action rarely accounts for more than 20-25% of any entering class. But at the University of Texas' flagship campus, a full 71% of the class is comprised of top 10%ers. That gives almost no flexibility to admissions directors to try and find balance, admitting students who attended more rigorous schools but were not in the top 10%, or have special talents or experiences that aren't manifested in a GPA.

Somin continues:

To be sure, this result could happen with traditional racial preferences as well. However, the ten percent plan affects a great many more admissions decisions than even the most rigid old-style affirmative action systems do. Rarely, if ever, do traditional affirmative action plans determine the admission of more than 15-20% of a school's student body. By contrast, at the University of Texas at Austin, over 70% of the student body was admitted under the ten percent plan. While some of these students would surely have gotten in anyway, it is highly likely that the ten percent plan leads to much larger sacrifices of academic merit than do racial preferences similar to those used at most other academic institutions.

Second, and probably much worse, the article notes that the formula creates perverse incentives for students to try to game the system by transferring to weaker schools or taking easier classes. While neither the article nor other evidence I have seen provides precise data on the numbers of students who do this, the effect may well be large. When I lived in Texas in 2001-2002, I met quite a few people with high school-age children who had switched to weaker schools in order to take advantage of the plan, or were considering doing so. Obviously, there is no similar perverse incentive created by traditional affirmative action. With a system of racial quotas or "plus factors," both white and minority high school students still have incentives to go to strong schools, in order to maximize their college admissions chances.

Third, the tradeoffs inherent in the ten percent plan are less transparent to both students and the general public than those involved in racial quotas. As a result, it is more likely that harmful effects will remain unmonitored and undetected. If public universities are going to strive for racial diversity, the costs and benefits of doing so should be as transparent as possible.

Finally, the ten percent plan also has the effect of disadvantaging high-achieving minority students who go to strong schools and - in part for that reason - fall short of the top ten percent in their class. Not only are these students disfavored relative to minority students attending weaker schools, they are also disfavored compared to whites in weaker schools as well.

I've noticed this dynamic in situations outside of the "10% plan." When debating the merits of the Louisville and Seattle plans, one thing that impressed me about all the "race-neutral" alternatives is that they all seemed to worsen the negative aspects of affirmative actions. Students would have to travel even further, academic standards would become less relevant, assignment would have no bearing on any remotely meritorious characteristic and would often be completely random. The only advantage was that they didn't "use" race--but yet, everyone knew they were an end-around for racial diversity as well! It's incoherent.

Of course, one could say that 10% plans have the advantage of not explicitly race-based, which might excuse them under a pure "color-blind" view. Yet, as Somin notes, you would then have to excuse not "explicitly race-based" efforts by the Jim Crow South to preserve racial hierarchy (of which there were many).

In the end, if we're going to pursue racial integration in the schools, we might as well be overt about it. It's not just more honest--it also works better for all concerned.

On The First Night of Chanukah

My voters gave to me....Second Place!

I'm thrilled. Really, I am. To think, I started this blog before I even entered college. And now it is getting recognition from all corners of the world. 2nd place in a category that nominally includes 1,500 blogs is quite an accomplishment. And I thank every person who voted for me and this blog.

Oh, and as for the real Chanukah present--I got a $25 iTunes gift card. Which I proceeded to immediately use to buy the "Final Fantasy IX" soundtrack. Delightful.

So, Happy Chanukah, and congratulations to the champion!

Naughty or Nice

Buried at the end of an Obama-related post over at Captain's Quarters, I noted a very interesting observation:

The issue for Obama is the vulnerability he has to scandal. His trump card will be his outsider status and his candor. Obama represents the hope of a change from business as usual in Washington, a uniter instead of a divider -- the kind of meme that elected the last two Presidents, of course, and we have seen the resultant increase in partisan rancor over the last 14 years. If Obama's relationship with Rezko gains any traction, it threatens to hurt Obama's greatest strength.

Emphasis my own. I was six when Bill Clinton first ran for President, so I really don't know to what degree he ran on a platform of inspiration and unity and whatnot, but I certainly recall the "uniter, not a divider" rhetoric of George W. Bush in 2000. I always understood it as distancing from the vicious attack machine of the Republican Congress, whose constant scandal-mongering and ill-advised impeachment push had seriously turned off voters to the entire concept of Republican leadership.

Of course, "uniter, not a divider" rapidly became a sick joke with regards to the Bush administration, which without fail has set out to divide the country as deeply and as passionately as possible. That's how a guy like me went from supporting the Iraq war in 2002 to a bona fide anti-Bush firebreather in the Daily Kos vein.

Even still, however, I wonder whether there might be a grain of truth to the idea that "unity" pledges are ultimately self-defeating. This is not a happy thought for me, as I am a to-the-bone supporter of Obama's brand of politics.

But consider: Politics feeds off a division. Politicians need to formulate a reason to vote for you, which means voting against the other guy. Normally, that division comes down simply on a policy level--politician A argues that his opponent's plans are ill-advised, weak, or wrong, and the opponent responds in kind. However, if A attempts to take the high road and reach out to his opponent's base, that paradigm doesn't work as well. B's policies aren't under attack, they're being co-opted. That leaves B with two responses: Either a) press even harder to show policy distinctions, which means focusing on the most extreme elements (or perceived elements) of A's beliefs, or b) go straight mudslinging. Either way, it's a recipe for increased, rather than decreased, negativity. Since one can't counter nice with nice, one has to go naughty. And political discourse gets dragged down with it.

Agree? Or am I being too cynical?

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Last Push! Let's finish the vote strong.



***

Also, before I forget, I added Captain's Quarters to the blogroll. Welcome aboard! (I'm sure he's thrilled).

Vote For Me!

Note: As long as voting remains open, this post will stay at the top. Newer content will appear below.



If you want to cast a vote for this blog in the 2006 Weblog Awards (Best of the Top 3501 - 5000), you can do so here. You can vote once a day, so I'll be bumping this post to the top each day.

***

12/14 11:25 AM: Well that will teach me to be optimistic. About anything. Not only did I have a sucky day in general, but my 35 vote lead completely evaporated, with Blue Gal storming ahead by as much as 70 before settling down at 47 when I went to sleep. Currently, she's up 53.

12/13 Midnight: The blogs are finally starting to space out. I'm sitting on a 34 vote lead over Blue Gal, who herself is up 17 on CDR. Good news for me!

12/12 Midnight: Today was a big day. The current tally stands as follows:

The Debate Link: 361
Blue Gal: 349
CDR Salamander: 339

This is my largest lead in some time (a whopping 12 vote margin!). I like the trend lines, but its too early to celebrate--after all, I came back from an even greater margin to take this lead in the first place!

12/11 Midnight: I guess miracles can happen. The race is in a dead heat, with Blue Gal 4 votes ahead of The Debate Link 4 votes ahead of CDR. I made up some serious ground today. At this pace, I may well yet pull this baby off.

12/10 Midnight: Blue Gal and CDR seemed locked in a battle for first (there within a vote of each other now. I'm 25 votes behind, nestled comfortably in third. Unless I stage a rally, it looks like that's where I'll stay. Do you believe in miracles?

12/09 Midnight: As Friday draws to a close, here are the top 4:
1) Blue Gal: 125 votes (22.77%)
2) CDR Salamander: 113 votes (20.58%)
3) The Debate Link: 99 votes (18.03%)
4) Geeky Mom: 74 votes (13.48%)

It drops off significantly after that.

12/08 Bump: After a fast start, The Debate Link is fading hard. I'm now in third place, and threatening to drop back into fourth. Get on it, TDLers!

"Fit the Description"

The Washington Post has a stellar story in today's "Style" section about the experiences Black men in Queens have with the police. It's extremely powerful.

The stomach flutter starts as a cop strolls up, or a patrol car flashes its lights, or two officers stand atop the escalator at the Jamaica Center in Queens and run their eyes over the subway riders.

"I see a cop and I can't help it -- I feel butterflies," said Tareaphe Richards, 21, a college student with an oval face and husky good looks. "They'll pull me aside sometimes because they say I fit the description. Yeah. Young black male. I always 'fit the description.'"

One of the problems with trying to impress upon White America the immense psychic (and other) damage racial profiling inflicts upon Blacks is that the practice (and its pervasiveness) is so foreign to them.

The Washington Post interviewed 12 young black men in Jamaica -- streetwise and college students alike -- and each said he had been stopped by police at least three times. The Post interviewed 12 young white men in Greenwich Village and Tribeca in Manhattan. Just one of them reported ever being stopped by an officer, for skateboarding in a subway station.

I've never been stopped "on the street" by a cop. But I do remember one time when I was a teenager playing "hide and go seek in the dark" by my house. I was crouching behind a leaf pile in my front yard, wearing a dark hoodie, when a cop pulls up behind me. It could not have possibly looked more like a stakeout, and I knew it. So I stood up and heartily waved at the cop, who looked at me for a moment, then kept driving. There is no way in hell he would have just kept driving if I was Black.

Richards lives in Jamaica and serves as a youth minister at his church. A year ago, he walked to church in his finest suit, hands jammed in his pockets. As he rounded a corner on a street of single-family houses, two officers spotted him and one raised his gun, ordering him: Take your hands out of your pockets!

The police were investigating a shooting from the night before and feared Richards was a Dapper Dan gang member in search of more victims.

The cop's hands wavered; Richards could smell the adrenaline, his and theirs. In a methodical voice he said he-was-taking-his-hands-out-of-his-pockets-and-raising-his-arms-over-his-head.

Fear? Embarrassment burned worse. "I felt violated, I can't even explain it," Richards said. "Imagine someone I minister to seeing that."

If it happened once, maybe it wouldn't be such a big deal. But that's the problem--it's pervasive. It's a fact of life. And it happens again, and again, with real consequences.

You'd like to think that's it and turn to Deacon, but Richards has another story. A few months later, he drove his church's white van to a youth basketball game. He had 11 black teenagers in his care. A police car flashed its lights and Richards pulled to the curb.

"They said there was an incident the night before with a van," Richards says, his face wrinkling in disgust. "I asked them, 'And that van, it had my church's name printed on the side of it?' "

The officers didn't appreciate his humor. They told the kids to get out and spent an hour ransacking the van. Richards arrived at the gym so late that the team had to forfeit the game.

Communities need cops. They need people who will do a tough job in dangerous neighborhoods to keep people safe. But the police can't do its job effectively if its wards are afraid of them as much as they are afraid of the criminals. Communities need cops, but cops need to maintain the support of their communities as well.

Richards has something else to say. He had given a lot of thought to becoming a police officer; he had even scored in the 99th percentile on the police test. Good salary, benefits, retirement after 20 years -- what's not to like, except this:

"How could I become something that everyone is scared of now? How could I risk becoming what scares me?"

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Nothing witty this time. Just go vote Debate Link.

It's Written Apology Time

The Salt Lake Tribune (just a hunch, but I suspect not part of the liberal media) reports on a immigration raid at a local factory:

HYRUM - If only for a few minutes, Maria felt like an "illegal alien" in her homeland - the United States of America.

She thought she was going on break from her job at the Swift & Co. meat processing plant here on Tuesday, but instead she and others were forced to stand in a line by U.S. immigration agents. Non-Latinos and people with lighter skin were plucked out of line and given blue bracelets.

The rest, mostly Latinos with brown skin, waited until they were "cleared" or arrested by "la migra," the popular name in Spanish for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), employees said.

"I was in the line because of the color of my skin," she said, her voice shaking. "They're discriminating against me. I'm from the United States, and I didn't even get a blue bracelet."

Steve Benen: "If the DHS really conducted an immigration raid by separating people based entirely on their skin color, somebody better lose their job over it."

Wrong. Someone should lose their job. And the department should get sued. And they should have to pay a massive settlement for forgetting that it is no longer 1925. And then they should get someone to explain to America's Latino population that our immoral crackdown on undocumented workers is absolutely nothing they need to be concerned about whatsoever.

In Cache County, minorities make up 12 percent - Latinos are 8 percent - of the population of 98,000 people.

Women were crying as they were handcuffed with plastic ties and put on the buses. Some weren't allowed to get their belongings from their lockers. Maria, who declined to use her last name, argued with an agent because she was getting the coat for her 34-year-old niece, Blanca, who was arrested.

"She [the agent] told me, 'Do you think it's going to be cold in Mexico?' "Maria said, holding back tears. ''I've never seen people get treated como animales."

Maria was able to give Blanca a goodbye hug and promised to pack up her trailer. Gloria Alvanes looked for her husband at the plant. He called a relative before he was arrested and taken away. She said she is upset because she doesn't understand why the government is treating undocumented workers as criminals when most of them are just here to work. Alvanes has been married to her husband for five years, but he hasn't become a legal U.S. resident because the immigration process is taking longer than they expected. Now, she and her daughter, Marilyn Cornejo, a high school junior, are worried because they have a tight budget, it's 12 days before Christmas and there is no money for an immigration lawyer.

"What do they want us to do?" Marilyn asked. "Do they want us to drop out of school and get jobs?"

At five schools in Cache County, counselors comforted students who feared their parents had been taken into custody. Some school leaders explained to Latino students what was happening and made sure there was someone at home.

Latino leader Rolando Murillo, who happened to be at Mountaincrest High School in Hyrum, talked with about 100 students, including children whose parents are in this country legally but who fear "la migra."

"La migra is a nightmare for them," he said.

As usual, the immigration debate forgets that we're dealing with actual human beings. "Being Brown", as one of the women at the plant put it, is far more relevant to how their treated (como animales) than "being human." And that is a shame. A shame to the DHS, and a shame to the nation.

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Don't forget to cast a vote!

Silence Is Ungolden

Solangel Maldonado at BlackProf has some interesting thoughts on the recent poll on racism I just blogged on, as well as a panel discussion.

Jared Taylor of American Renaissance magazine stated that Americans spend too much time talking about whites' racism against Blacks, but never address Blacks' racism against whites. As an example, he pointed out that Blacks can call whites "crackers" without any repercussions, but whites cannot use the "N" word. Although I do not believe this is a good example, it might be worthwhile to examine whether Blacks should be able to use potentially offensive words when referring to whites. According to Mr. Taylor, whites live in constant fear of saying something that might offend Blacks. Is this true? If so, does this "fear" hinder opportunities for cross-cultural communication and impede the development of personal and professional relationships between Blacks and whites?

Taylor is not my favorite human being, to say the least. When even FrontPageMagazine calls you a "white nationalist who has clearly rejected a multi-racial society," that's a pretty powerful sign that the charge of being a racist is not hyperbole. I have no clue how he got included on a panel on a major television network.

That being said, I agree with Professor Maldonado: Taylor's "cracker" "N-word" example is really dumb, but there is something to be said for the notion that White people walk on egg-shells when talking to Blacks. This doesn't get discussed for a variety reasons. Obviously, its difficult to start a discussion when the topic is "we're anxious about having discussions." Moreover, the Whites who do tend to broach the topic tend to be the ones like Mr. Taylor, who are appalled they can't say the "n-word" on equal grounds with Black people, rather than White people who honestly want to pursue the topic in good faith. Because of that, the public discourse on race conversation tends to come from a particular wing of Whites that doesn't seem interested in truly pursuing a race-equal society. And thus, Black people look warily on the topic as a whole as well.

This is problematic. Patricia J. Williams notes that race topics are made to be unmentionable

[both] blacks and whites will feel keenly circumscribed. Perhaps most people never intend to be racist or oppressive or insulting, but by describing zones of vulnerability, by setting up regions of conversational taboo and fences of rigidified politeness, the unintentional exile of individuals as well as races may be quietly accomplished and avoided indefinitely. [Patricia J. Williams, The Alchemy of Race and Rights 65 (1991)]

Breaking this discursive impasse has to be considered a top priority for anti-racism scholars in the years to come.

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Let's talk about voting Debate Link

Insult to Injury

In the last congressional election of the cycle, Democrat Ciro Rodriguez has defeated incumbent Republican Henry Bonilla to take the 23rd Texas District for the Donkey.

Henry Bonilla (R) - 32,165 45.68%
Ciro D. Rodriguez (D) - 38,247 54.32%

The district is heavily Latino and heavily rural, though it does include portions of the San Antonio area.



The race was a run-off because Bonilla could not crack 50% of the vote in the first round of elections. Yesterday, he ran behind his election day total (around 48%), giving Ciro the victory. What to we glean from this?

Well, in part, the results can be explained by the simple fact that Democrats are energized right now and Republicans are demoralized. But I think there is more to it. Given the extent that many people were seen as voting "against" the GOP rather than "for" the Democrats, there was always a risk of buyer's remorse setting in. The Democrats, by taking both the Senate and House, exceeded many people's expectations. It's entirely possible that when they woke up the morning after election day, they'd be like, "oh crap, what have we done?" The election of Ciro Rodriguez in a post-election day race he was seen as an underdog in is a signal that voters are comfortable with the idea of a Democratic House and Senate, and are at least willing to give us a shot. That's good news for Democrats hoping to consolidate their gains come 2008.

Congratulations to the victor!

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You can't vote in a real election anymore, but you can vote Debate Link!

Self-Fullfilling Prophecies

I was catching up with an old friend today, and the subject turned to Affirmative Action. My friend is a Republican (but the sensible sort), and was discussing a paper she had written in opposition to AA. One of the arguments she made was the popular claim that Affirmative Action hurts Blacks by increasing White resentment because it is perceived that they are getting something they don't deserve. My first thought on that front is what Pittsburgh Law Professor Richard Delgado pointed out--it doesn't seem borne out by the facts. In the era since we've had Affirmative Action, the public image and perception of Black Americans has improved dramatically. Many experts chalk that up to the increased presence of African-Americans in higher education, elite jobs and industry, and overall prevalence in the daily lives of White people. It's possible that this is just masking some negative effect AA has on popular views of Blacks. But it seems that any reduction in Black public image, if there is one, is outweighed by the positive effect of increased Black presence directly fostered by Affirmative Action.

But after reading about this controversy at Tufts University, I realized there is another issue in play here. The people who think less of Blacks or think them "undeserving" of their spots in elite colleges are the same as those opposing Affirmative Action! By and large, I haven't noticed the people who support Affirmative Action also subscribing to the view that Black students are inferior. So to the extent that there is a correlation between AA and views of Black inferiority, it's self-fullfilling! At Tufts, a conservative publication wrote up the following Christmas Carol "parody":

O Come All Ye Black Folk
Boisterous yet Desirable
O come ye, O come ye to our University
Come and we will admit you,
Born in to oppression;
O come let us accept them,
O come let us accept them,
O come let us accept them,
Fifty-two black freshman.

O Sing, gospel choirs,
We will accept your children,
No matter what your grades are, F's, D's, or G's,
Give them all privileged status;
We will welcome all.
O come let us accept them,
O come let us accept them,
O come let us accept them,
Fifty-two black freshman.

All come! Blacks, we need you, Born into the ghetto.
O Jesus! We need you now to fill our racial quotas.
Descendants of Africa, with brown skin arriving:
O come let us accept them,
O come let us accept them,
O come let us accept them,
Fifty-two black freshman.

O Come All Ye Black Folk!

Made out as a critique of Affirmative Action, this carol reveals more than it intends to. It just assumes that all the Black students at Tufts are D or F students, underqualified, accepted only to fill a racial quota. Even under the most cynical view, this is highly doubtful. Satirical or no, it is still a racist poem, and the overlap between the anti-AA and anti-Black camps should be disturbing.

The point is that I don't think the people who subscribe to the view of Blacks as undeserving of their earnings are the ones best suited to dictating policy on reparative action for African-Americans. They should not benefit from a problem of their own making.

Meanwhile, an interesting poll was just released detailing America's views on racism. Unsurprisingly, there were some racial splits, with 84% of Blacks but only 66% of Whites believing that racism was a "somewhat" or "very serious" problem. However, I would have lowballed even the 66% figure, so I think that's pretty good news. Twice as many Blacks compared to Whites reported being victims of racial discrimination (50% to 25%). Excerpt from the article:

Professor Jack Dovidio of the University of Connecticut, who has researched racism for more than 30 years, estimates up to 80 percent of white Americans have racist feelings they may not even recognize.

"We've reached a point that racism is like a virus that has mutated into a new form that we don't recognize," Dovidio said.

He added that 21st-century racism is different from that of the past.

"Contemporary racism is not conscious, and it is not accompanied by dislike, so it gets expressed in indirect, subtle ways," he said.

That "stealth" discrimination reveals itself in many different situations.

A three-year undercover investigation by the National Fair Housing Alliance found that real estate agents steered whites away from integrated neighborhoods and steered blacks in to predominantly black neighborhoods.

Racism also can be a factor in getting a job.

Candidates named Emily O'Brien or Neil McCarthy were much more likely to get calls back from potential employers than applicants named Tamika Williams and Jamal Jackson, even though they had the same credentials, according to a study by the University of Chicago.

I think publicizing the degree of "stealth discrimination" in America is absolutely crucial to revitalizing anti-racist sentiment here.

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Fight the hegemony. Vote Debate Link (Any old Glenbrooks competitors in the House?)

Debate This!

The L.A. Times has a neat article on the growing trend of "performance debate," roughly speaking, debate that utilizes unconventional "guerilla" tactics to subvert doiminant debating paradigms and offer new ways of looking at topics. The simplest version is the kritik. But several teams go well beyond that:

At a recent Malibu contest, Brett Beeler of Cal State Fullerton stopped mid-sentence in a debate and asked teammate Caitlin Gray for a document.

As she rummaged around, Beeler impatiently left the podium and whispered heatedly at her. The tiff escalated, and suddenly he slapped her.

The judge of the debate came unglued. "You need to leave right now!" he shouted at Beeler.

But the slap was an act — a way to breathe life into the otherwise dry debate topic, a court case involving domestic violence.

"I really did believe it was an incident of domestic abuse," said the judge, Orion Steele, a professor at the University of Redlands. "It took me a good half-hour to cool down." Then he awarded the victory to Fullerton.

Each of Fullerton's two-person debate squads uses a strategy tailored to individual members' backgrounds.

Puja Chopra and Parija Patel, both of Indian descent, sit down and meditate in debates to symbolize that arguing over legislation is pointless because true change must come from within.
[...]
When performance teams face each other, things can get pretty weird. Long Beach State once faced two women from Concordia College in Minnesota who stripped down to G-strings and talked about reclaiming their bodies from objectification by men.

The all-male California team couldn't get past the distraction. "Their brains left them," said Neesen, their coach.

Another contest pitted a Fort Hays student dancing with a chair against a Northwestern team reading the script of "Dr. Strangelove." The topic was federal control of Native American land.

Another prominent tactic is quoting rap lyrics in rounds.

Kevin Drum says that actions such as this "better suited for a career on Fox News than the debaters of my parents' generation."

I don't think that's true, and I think it mistakes the role of these performative debates. Although the L.A. Times tries to pitch performance debate as in opposition to obscure post-modern philosophers, there are actually very deep theoretical roots to this sort of debate. Much of the argumentative justification for why this sort of debate is legitimate, what its impacts are, etc, stem directly from the most cutting edge philosophy out there today. In other words, it isn't just theatrics--it's got a real and sustained connection to important educational concepts. To take the rap lyrics example, I've quoted with approval Professor Paul Butler's stellar article Much Respect: Toward a Hip-Hop Theory of Punishment. That rap music, as an expression of the lived-experience of at least portions of Black America, may have something to tell us about policies and procedures that disproportionately impact Black Americans shouldnot surprise us. Ultimately, the use of rap lyrics is not meaningfully different from, say, the law and literature movement. Many scholars have discussed the importance of narratives as a means of giving credance to suppressed voices--driving home the oppression they face and the horrors they've realized. Dry debate over abstractions, they argue, makes it easy to rationalize oppression--but it's much harder to say that this person in this story has been treated justly and fairly.

One can argue that this type of debate isn't ideal, or find flaws in it. And that's fine. One could also argue that certain judges tend to fetishize it at the expense of fairly adjudicating rounds, and I'd probably agree with that too. But I still think that the presence of performative strategies in debate is legitimate, and it catches way more flack from traditionalists than can really be warranted based on the educational precepts debate claims to uphold.

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Even performative debaters still want you to cast a ballot...

Stalag 2006

I'm going to excerpt this piece about the classic movie Stalag 17 the exact same way Andrew Sullivan does:

While Stalag 17's [American] prisoners are planning their escapes, and the Germans are trying to stop them, both sides keep referring to this dopey sort of rulebook called "the Geneva Conventions." These appear to be rules about the fair treatment of prisoners - I dunno, not torturing them, for instance - and even the Nazis obey them. Weird, huh?

A lot hinges on them, as a plot gimmick, but the characters seem to take them for granted. Even though it's a war, there are still things you don't do. Which, if only for story purposes, explains why the movie isn't two hours of Otto Preminger holding William Holden's head under water ...

This isn't supposed to take anything away from the Nazis as the villains of the piece --you can see it in the kommandant's beady little burgher eyes that he wishes he could get around the Conventions - but the rules are the rules.

Even if the rules are - how did the Attorney General put it? - "quaint."

But here's the thing. If you accept that the Geneva Conventions are just an annoying formality, like recycling - and I guess we do now - it ruins the whole movie. There's no drama in it. Because the Third Reich isn't even trying. The prisoners get mail from home. They get visits from the Red Cross. They aren't even kept in cages. No one hoods them, or electrocutes them, or pretends to execute them, or places them in a "stress position" or walks them around on a leash. At one of the darkest points in the story, one of them is forced to stand for a few days without sleep. Like that even hurts.

Don't the guards want their country to win? ...

It is rather amazing, when you think about it.

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Resigned To Corruption

According to Paul Mirengoff, there is a simple and profound difference between Democrats and Republicans on corruption:

One of the fundamental differences between Republicans and Democrats usually becomes evident when there's a scandal. When Republicans are caught misbehaving, they normally resign. Recall Rep. Livingston who immediately called it quits over a sex scandal. By contrast, Bill Clinton, with the solid support of his party, was clinging to power even though he had committed perjury in connection with a sex scandal. If such Republicans aren't inclined to resign, the odds are good that either their caucus or their constituents will promptly toss them overboard.

Interesting theory. Let's test it, shall we?

In the last congress, there were 18 Senators and Congressmen who were under federal investigation. 14 were Republicans. Of those, four resigned while in office. For two (Bob Ney and Duke Cunningham), it occurred roughly concurrent with a criminal conviction, so no props. Tom DeLay did resign prior to any criminal conviction, but only after trying to seize even more power for himself, and certainly (as his new blog shows with no sense of shame or remorse. Still, we will count Rep. DeLay as having resigned in the face of scandal. That's one. And Mark Foley also resigned pretty much as the scandal broke, so that's two.

Of the 10 remaining Republicans, two (Sen. Bill Frist and Rep. Jim Kolbe) had announced their retirement at the end of the term, but did not resign (and were not popularly thought of as having been forced into retirement due to scandal). Two more (Sen. Conrad Burns and Rep. Curt Weldon) ran for re-election but were defeated, while Katherine Harris became the GOP's Senate candidate and lost her seat that way. The five remaining GOPers are still in Congress. They are Reps. Rick Renzi, Jerry Lewis, and John Doolittle, and Senators Ted Stevens and Arlen Specter. Lewis was the chair of the House Appropriations Committee, Doolittle was the House Republican Conference Secretary, Specter was the Senate Judiciary Committee Chair, and Stevens was the Senate Appropriations Committee Chair (and Senate pro tempore). So these aren't small fish. With the exception of Senator Specter (where it is happening for reasons wholly unrelated to corruption), I am aware of no calls for any of these people to relinquish their committee assignment.

Of course, this list does not include politicians whose scandals have not yet prompted a federal investigation (like Dennis Hastert). Still, even with the limited data that we have, some interesting themes develop. On the one hand, 9 of the 14 officials under investigation are no longer in Congress. So that's a point in the GOPs favor. On the other hand, only four of those nine left voluntarily, and only two of those left because of scandal. So that's a point against. There also has been no discussion of action against those Congressmen who have refused to relinquish their seats, as there has been in the case of three of the four Democrats under investigation (Reps. Jane Harman, Alan Mollohan, and William Jefferson; the fourth is Sen. Bob Menendez). At least one corrupt politician was given the opportunity to be promoted (Harris in Florida). Ultimately, only 2 of 14 GOP elected officials under investigation left office due to scandal, or 14%. That isn't a great margin, and certainly not enough to warrant Mr. Mirengoff's claim.

Though none of the four investigated Democrats has left office, there have been significant actions taken against them. Harman was denied a coveted chair of the Intelligence Committee, in part because she was seen as too close to Israel (which is related to the federal investigation into her connections to AIPAC). Jefferson, of course, was stripped of his committee assignment, and many prominent Democratic voices have urged that he be denied reseating come 2007. Compare that Republicans, which tried to specifically protect Tom DeLay from punishment in the event he was indicted. Moreover, since there are 3.5x as many Republicans as Democrats under investigation in the first place, and Republicans only resign due to scandal at a rate of 1 in 7, there are simply fewer Democrats available to do the "right thing", because fewer are doing the wrong thing in the first place.

In the end, the most even-handed assessment I can make is that: a) there are more corrupt Republicans than Democrats; b) when caught, individual Republicans may be marginally more likely to resign than Democrats who are caught; and c) Democrats are more likely to punish their non-resigning corrupt politicians than are Republicans. Any corruption, of course, is too much corruption, and both parties are not nearly committed enough to rooting it out for my tastes. But to suggest that the GOP is more responsive to corruption in its midst is simply fanciful, and the data does not bear it out.

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Urging once-a-day voting seems oddly appropriate now...

Drug War

Despite my hippie reputation, I'm a pretty straight-laced guy. I don't smoke, drink, or do drugs, and I never have. I also do not buy libertarian arguments that drug laws are per se immoral as a "victimless crime," and agree that in theory, drug distribution is something the government can regulate and/or criminalize.

That being said, the manner in which the drug war has been prosecuted is so destructive, militarized, and excessive as to deprive it of any legitimacy it otherwise would possess. It is discriminatorily targeted at minority communities, it takes away needed resources from other law enforcement priorities, it leads to absurd political competitions amongst elected officials to appear "tough," and it has ushered in a police culture of complete disregard for law, legal restrictions, and basic norms of justice in the pursuit of conviction at any cost.



I got this picture from The Agitator, whose coverage on drug war excesses has been stellar. Tell me, does this picture represent the America you and I think we live in?

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Crossing Poland

A long while back, I wrote a post positing that if Hitler had not invaded Poland, nobody would have cared about his genocide. Obviously, had Hitler not been expansionist, the death toll of the Holocaust would have been greatly reduced, but it still would have been horrific--the number of German Jews alone killed was around 200,000. The "it's not our problem" line of thinking allows us to ignore atrocities that are contained within one country's borders, and thus sanctions the mass killing going there. This dynamic, I argued, was going on in Darfur. And without any sort of regional implications, the Sudanese regime apparently would be allowed to continue killing with impunity.

But the thing about "contained" catastrophes is that it's hard to contain them. Refugee pressure, ethnic allies in neighboring countries, and generic instability can all push an intramural conflict into an interstate conflaguration. And it appears that might be what's happening in Darfur:

The crisis in Darfur has exploded in recent weeks, and now threatens to drag fragile neighboring countries into a regional war.

Both Chad and the Central African Republic (CAR) have become engulfed in fighting that involves a toxic mix of rebel groups, government forces, armed militias, and civilians.

"It's not a steady deterioration," Jan Egeland, the outgoing UN humanitarian chief, told reporters last week. "It's a free fall, and it includes Darfur, eastern Chad, and northern Central African Republic."

In the past month alone, nearly 60,000 Darfurians have been forced from their homes to escape massacre at the hands of Arab militias known as the janjaweed. Aid workers, UN personnel, and independent observers say the janjaweed are backed by Sudan's government, but Khartoum has repeatedly denied this charge.

In eastern Chad, hundreds of aid workers have been evacuated due to increased hostilities between military forces and anti-government rebel groups, while Arab militiamen have ventured deeper into the country to conduct assaults, resulting in the displacement of nearly 100,000 Chadians.

And atrocities committed by a variety of rebel groups and armed bandits over the past few months have forced tens of thousands of people from the CAR to cross the border into Chad.

"The internal conflicts in Darfur, Chad, and the CAR are now linked by the regional presence and movement of armed groups, arms, and civilians across the three borders," said Georgette Gagnon, deputy director of the Africa division of Human Rights Watch. "And of course, the regional governments are using these insurgencies to carry out a proxy war against each other."

It would indeed be ironic if the prospect of an all-out regional war is what finally motivated the international community to get serious about ending the killing (when it's probably too late). But what lesson do we take from this? When we try to ignore internal conflicts as "not our problem", they become "our problem" because they metastasize into major threats to international stability. Had we not been locked into this short-sighted mindset, we could have nipped the Darfur situation before it got out of hand (and saved hundreds of thousands of lives in the process). Now, it may very well be too late. As with when Hitler crossed into Poland, the only way to stop the genocide now, in all likelihood, is to hope the right parties win the war.

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Vote, if you'd like:

God's Work

Jeffrey Goldberg has a fascinating review of Jimmy Carter's new book, Peace Not Apartheid, which has come under withering fire for its anti-Israel slant. This passage made me smile:

Carter, not unlike God, has long been disproportionately interested in the sins of the Chosen People. He is famously a partisan of the Palestinians, and in recent months he has offered a notably benign view of Hamas, the Islamist terrorist organization that took power in the Palestinian territories after winning a January round of parliamentary elections.

There are differences, however, between Carter's understanding of Jewish sin and God's. God, according to the Jewish Bible, tends to forgive the Jews their sins. And God, unlike Carter, does not manufacture sins to hang around the necks of Jews when no sins have actually been committed.

But the more interesting part of the review was about the interplay between the book and evangelical support for Israel. Conservatives have tried to tag Carter's book as a sign that Democrats no long support the Jewish State. The problem is that there is no evidence that Democrats care a whit what Carter has to say on the subject. When questioned on the issue, Nancy Pelosi remarked:

With all due respect to former President Carter, he does not speak for the Democratic Party on Israel. Democrats have been steadfast in their support of Israel from its birth, in part because we recognize that to do so is in the national security interests of the United States. We stand with Israel now and we stand with Israel forever. The Jewish people know what it means to be oppressed, discriminated against, and even condemned to death because of their religion. They have been leaders in the fight for human rights in the United States and throughout the world. It is wrong to suggest that the Jewish people would support a government in Israel or anywhere else that institutionalizes ethnically based oppression, and Democrats reject that allegation vigorously.

That's a pretty strong repudiation.

But Goldberg claims that the primary targets of Carter's book (in terms of who he's trying to persuade) are not liberals but fellow evangelicals, whom he wants to pull away from pro-Israel politics. The right-wing love for Israel always struck me as a rather odd position--it's not like there is a long history of Christian love for Jews, and Jews have steadfastly refused to ally with the evangelical right on pretty much any substantive issue they care about. Carter may think that they might be crackable:

Why is Carter so hard on Israeli settlements and so easy on Arab aggression and Palestinian terror? Because a specific agenda appears to be at work here. Carter seems to mean for this book to convince American evangelicals to reconsider their support for Israel. Evangelical Christians have become bedrock supporters of Israel lately, and Carter marshals many arguments, most of them specious, to scare them out of their position. Hence the Golda Meir story, seemingly meant to show that Israel is not the God-fearing nation that religious Christians believe it to be. And then there are the accusations, unsupported by actual evidence, that Israel persecutes its Christian citizens. On his fateful first visit to Israel, Carter takes a tour of the Galilee and writes, "It was especially interesting to visit with some of the few surviving Samaritans, who complained to us that their holy sites and culture were not being respected by Israeli authorities -- the same complaint heard by Jesus and his disciples almost two thousand years earlier."

There are, of course, no references to "Israeli authorities" in the Christian Bible. Only a man who sees Israel as a lineal descendant of the Pharisees could write such a sentence. But then again, the security fence itself is a crime against Christianity, according to Carter; it "ravages many places along its devious route that are important to Christians." He goes on, "In addition to enclosing Bethlehem in one of its most notable intrusions, an especially heartbreaking division is on the southern slope of the Mount of Olives, a favorite place for Jesus and his disciples." One gets the impression that Carter believes that Israelis -- in their deviousness -- somehow mean to keep Jesus from fulfilling the demands of His ministry.

I'm not sure how much credibiliy Carter has in the evangelical community these days, so I'm not sure how effective his plea will be. Nevertheless, it does perhaps foreshadow a worrisome trend.

At the end of the day, Leon Hadar remarks:

I'm not sure whether Carter doesn't like Israelis or hates Jews but from my perspective, he would go down in history as someone who made a huge contribution to Israel's security through his successful mediation of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty.

That should be true. Obviously, Carter did Israel a great service in brokering the peace treaty with Egypt. I am perfectly content to remember him for that, and proceed to forget every thing else he does in the region for the remainder of his life.

Jefferson Morley has a round-up of folks talking.

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That's New Orleans

Corrupt Congressman William "$90,000 in the freezer" Jefferson won re-election in a run-off against fellow Democrat Karen Carter. Given the controversy, he won surprisingly comfortably--57% to 43%.

Obviously, this is a black-eye to Democrats trying to claim the mantle of fighting corruption. On the other hand, he may not be an embarassment for that much longer. Anyone want to venture an over/under on how long he'll remain in Congress?

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Elections. Yay.

The Washington Post reports that Palestinian President Abbas may call for early elections. Palestinian government has been in an state of gridlock--both because the West refuses to recognize it so long as it refuses to recognize Israel, and because there is bitter internal feud by Abbas' Fatah Party and the ruling Hamas.

Might I inquire what this is supposed to accompolish?

Obviously, I know the theory behind it: A new election might shake up the status quo enough so their can be some movement on the peace process. The problems, though, are

1) There is no guarantee that pro-peace elements will win a new election. Indeed, I'm not exactly sure what party a Palestinian would vote for if they are pro-peace, as neither Fatah nor Hamas really have expressed much of an interest in stopping terrorism. The lack of viable peace party in Palestine does not signal that a majority of Palestinians don't want peace, merely that a majority of Palestinians in organized gun-bearing groups don't want peace, and are willing to intimidate others to insure it doesn't happen.

2) There is no guarantee that any major shift in electoral power will take place peacefully. Hamas and Fatah are already on the verge of a civil war. Any internal instability could easily spill into Israel, prompting their own intervention.

3) It is supremely unlikely that a new government would be stable enough to meet the key demands of the West--recognition of Israel. Groups willing to entertain the notion simply don't have enough power vis-a-vis rejectionist groups (who certainly won't lay down arms just because they come up on the wrong side of a vote).

I'm a big fan of democracy generally, but democractic action in Palestine right now is not necessarily going to lead to peace. Let's not get too excited.

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As a certain rapper would say...VOTE OR DIE

An Anti-Heteronormative Reading of Leviticus 18:22

Thou shalt not lie with a man as with a woman, for it is an abomination. Lev. 18:22

It is not good for man to be alone. -- Gen. 2:18

I just got back from services today, where I had the pleasure of listening to Marilyn Wind, a congregant and lay member of the Committee on Jewish Laws and Standards (CJLS), discuss the committees recent debate and Teshuvot on the issues of gay rights. I also got the opportunity to read the (still unreleased) opinion by Rabbi Tucker, and it was (as expected), phenomenal. I had to give Ms. Wind the opinion back, but she promised to make and send me a copy--as soon as I receive it, I'll be able to go into more depth as to Rabbi Tucker's interpretative schema.

But as I was reading his opinion, I was struck with an interesting paradox in how we read the biblical prohibition against homosexuality. The relevant line is, as quoted above, thou shalt not lie with a man as with a woman, for it is an abomination. This passage is considered to be the largest barrier against religious reconceptualization of gay rights. We interpret it as an absolute bar against homosexual (or at least gay male) activity. "As with a women" supposedly refers to sexual activity. This is a heteronormative interpretation--only for heterosexual males (and homosexual females) are one's lyings with a women sexual. Cross-applying the rule to homosexuals means taking the heteronormative viewpoint and transplanting the rule (as opposed to the text) to homosexual persons.

But is that necessarily the proper interpretation? The prohibition is not phrased directly--it does not say "men should not have sex with men." The first thing we must observe is that the mandate of the text depends very heavily on who it is speaking to. Even if we accept that the prohibition is on having sex with men, it is facile to suggest that a female Jew is prohibited from having sex with men. In its normative frame, the verse makes no sense applied directly to women. This does not in itself prove anything--one could extrapolate an inverted rule prohibiting lesbian activity for women (though such extra-textualism strikes me as a dangerous maneuver for a traditionalist). It does establish, however, that the standpoint of the reader matters as to the meaning of the phrase. At its most conservative, 18:22 means two entirely opposite things for men and for women: men should not have sex with men, and women should not have sex with women.

A law can only have force against those it is meant to speak to. A prohibition that only refers to Kohenim should not be expanded all Jews. If we understand the prohibition of 18:22 to be against male-male sex, then it can only apply to men, it does not "speak to" female activity in any sense, either (obviously) prohibiting them from having sex with men, or prohibiting them from having sex with women.

It is possible to make the law apply to women, however. From a (heterosexual) female perspective, "not lying with a man as one lies with a women" does not mean "don't have sex with men," because heterosexual women do not have sex with women when they lie with them. For straight women, the analogy "as one lies with a women" does not and cannot refer to sexual activity. Indeed, it means the opposite--presumably, heterosexual women would lie with other women completely platonically. So the law as applied to heterosexual women is that they should not (artificially) be barred from having sex with men they wish to "lie with", for that would imply they must lie with men as they lie with women (non-sexually or platonically). Now, even though I think that for women it is better to interpret 18:22 in a "does not speak to" manner, hold that thought.

As noted above, the law can only have affect against those to whom it speaks. If 18:22 does not speak to homosexual men, then it has nothing to say to them, and its prohibition is inapplicable to them. And it is rather clear that the traditional reading of 18:22 is heteronormative--it is not just speaking to men, but heterosexual men. This is true for the same reason applying the law to females is troublesome--"as with a women" does not mean the same thing for a homosexual male as it does for a heterosexual male. How does a homosexual male lie with a women? Platonically, not sexually. If the law is speaking to homosexuals, not lying with a man as with a women is telling them they should not lie platonically with men. Phrased more sensibly, it says that gay men should not be forced to be in platonic relationships with other gay men, for that forces their relationships to be as they would be with women. (Of course, just as the metaphor "as with a woman" in the normative case does not mean that heterosexual men sleep with every women and cannot have a platonic relationship, neither does its use in this case imply that homosexual men must have sex with every man they encounter.).

The upshot of this is astounding: 18:22 is read as an affirmation that every person should refrain from attempting to engage in sexual relations--not with those of the same sex--but with those whom they are not attracted to. It is a prohibition against bearing false witness against oneself. Interpreting the passage in this manner allows for its universalizability and, more importantly, it is the only way the passage can be made intelligible to someone with a same-sex sexual orientation. It also seems to be more thematically consistent with the human dignity and companionship norms that undergird Jewish ethical thought: it reinforces the notion that forcing gay men and women to live a life alone is not just inadvisable, but wrong--just like it was not good for Adam to be alone, so it is not good for gay men to be trapped in the closet, forced to deny themselves and unable to reach complete fulfillment as human beings.

The orthodox reading of 18:22 falters because it takes a heteronormative viewpoint it expands it to all men, homo- or heterosexual. It presumes that for all men, sex is how one lies with a women, draws a rule from that inference, then applies the rule against those for whom the original supposition does not apply. This likely stems from the belief that homosexuality was a aberration from the heterosexual norm--that for all men (including the supposedly gay) the natural inclination was a sexual preference towards women, and gay men were voluntarily choosing to deviate from that norm. Now that we know that this is not true, and that for many men sexual attraction to women is not their default state, we can no longer read "as with a women" as necessarily referring to sex for all men. That is not a tenable interpretation in the modern era. And given what we now know about sexuality, a liberal, humane alternative emerges that celebrates sexual equality and rejects false heteronormative bindings that consign gay Jews to a life of oppression and degradation.

Again, the preceding analysis doesn't mean you have to read 18:22 expansively (as prohibiting gay men from having sex with women). Such a reading is only required if one believes the passage speaks to (can be read against) gay men. If one does not care about that, a narrow reading would just say that the passage does not speak to gay men at all, and the prohibition is only against heterosexual male-male sex, perhaps meant as a bar against certain cultic rituals (as Rabbi Brad Artson has forwarded). Either way 18:22 poses no bar to homosexual males being granted equal standing in the community and full recognition of their sexual orientation. The claim that 18:22 does not speak to homosexuals would mean that the Bible is agnostic toward homosexual activity among homosexuals. That's radical enough. What makes my alternative reading so incredible is that it would suggest that not only is homosexuality okay, but attempting to suppress it--making gay men lie with women as they would lie with men--is qualitatively wrong. 18:22 is thus rendered precisely opposite its orthodox stance: a ringing endorsement of gay equality and a condemnation of the closet.

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Synagogue Services

I'm attending Synagogue Services tomorrow. Since I go to a Conservative (capital "C") congregation, the focus will be on the recent Teshuvot our movement issued on gay rights (blogged here and here). There's no real drama on which policy we'll follow (it's a very liberal congregation), but the discussion should be interesting. I'll let you know if there are any particularly trenchant insights to be had.

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And don't forget to vote!

Firefly's Back!

As an online RPG! I've never actually played a MMORPG before, but I may have to make an exception, for Firefly is a truly special series that deserves all the support it can get.

Via Instapundit, who says: "Shiny"!

Guess Who?

What Republican said this in 1994?

There's something to be said for having a Republican who supports civil rights in this broader context, including sexual orientation. When Ted Kennedy speaks on gay rights, he's seen as an extremist. When [I] speak[] on gay rights [I'm] seen as a centrist and a moderate. It's a little like if Eugene McCarthy was arguing in favor of recognizing China, people would have called him a nut. But when Richard Nixon does it, it becomes reasonable. When Ted says it, it's extreme; when I say it, it's mainstream. I think the gay community needs more support from the Republican Party and I would be a voice in the Republican Party to foster anti-discrimination efforts.

The other thing I should say is that the gay community and the members of it that are friends of mine that I've talked to don't vote solely on the basis of gay rights issues. They're also very concerned about a $4 trillion national debt, a failing school system, a welfare system that's out of whack and a criminal justice system that isn't working. I believe that while I would further the efforts Ted Kennedy has led, I would also lead the country in new and far more positive ways in taxing and spending, welfare reform, criminal justice and education. That's why I believe many gay and lesbian individuals will support my candidacy and do support my candidacy.

Hint: He's a favorite of the Christian Right today.

Counter-Mobilization: Myth or Reality?

Over at Tapped, Scott Lemieux argues that the experience of Canada disproves the "counter-mobilization" myth with regard to gay rights. The counter-mobilzation theory holds that aggressive gay rights litigation and court decisions lead to a backlash from the populace at large, ultimately harming the movement. Lemieux says that Canada proves no such thing occurs:

Gay rights litigation has been very successful in our neighbor to the north, with major victories at both the federal and provincial levels (including with respect to marriage benefits. According to oft-cited conventional wisdom, this success should have been a disaster for the gay rights movement, mobilizing a huge backlash and setting the cause back for generations as citizens were incensed by decision by "activist" courts. The problem is that this is not, in fact, true. Not only did Parliament end up formally recognizing gay marriage, but gay marriage has continued to become more popular, now commanding the support of almost 60% of the Canadian public.

That may well be, but I'm not sure this totally disproves the counter-mobilization theory. My observation was that pathbreaking gay rights judicial decisions do spark a backlash, but not in the jurisdiction their made in. The response to the Goodridge decision, for example, was far more hostile around the country than it ever was in Massachusetts specifically. The anti-gay impacts were felt most acutely in Ohio or Oregon, not that Bay State. Massachusetts denizens, of course, got to observe the effects of gay marriage first hand and were able to conclude that the sky didn't fall. But voters elsewhere had no such direct experience and thus only saw gay marriage presented by demagogic figures through the prism of a grave, imminent threat to the family.

Hence, I think the counter-mobilization hypothesis still makes sense when outsiders hear of a path-breaking gay rights decision elsewhere. Without the countervailing factor of actually observing gay families, counter-moblization can still occur. This doesn't mean abandoning litigation as a strategy, but it does mean that progressives must push harder for the visibility of gay and lesbian families across the country, not just in the stereotypical "hotspots."

Throwing It In

Tom Friedman on the Imus radio show, via Atrios:

We need to set a date, a clear and defined date, circled on the calendar, for us to leave there.

So, he's finally calling it quits. Tom Friedman, who has supported this war from the beginning, who has stuck through all of Bush's mistakes and catastrophes in the vain hope that we could find the magic bullet, has said we have to withdraw.

I think now would be a great time to revisit one of the most poignant quotes from his interview with me last August:

People come up to me now, because I've written an article basically saying Iraq's not working, and they say "Oh, thank you. Thank you for finally seeing the light." And my attitude is rather hostile to those people. Because I don’t think these people understood the problem from the beginning, and I don't want their thank you now. I feel terrible about Iraq. But I don't feel terrible because I'm going to be seen as someone who was on the wrong side of the war. I feel terrible first of all for all the casualties, and the incredible human devastation--American and Iraqi. But what I really feel terrible about, David, is this project. I thought it was really important. I still think it's important. And I have no apologies to make about thinking it's important. It's still important. I still hope we can salvage something. And so, I don't want anyone to say "Thank you for seeing the light." I haven't seen any light at all. All I've seen is darkness. Because if this project fails, only bad things will come of it for the world that my girls are going to grow up in.

A few days ago, Glenn Greenwald wrote a vicious critique of Mr. Friedman's contribution to Iraq War discourse. While I thought it far harsher than it needed to be, there was one point that I thought legitimate: Supporting the war based on the theoretical "best policy", when this administration has shown no interest in adapting that policy (or even trying to figure out what a "best policy" might look like) is wrong. It is delusional, it is folly, and it is wrong.

It may well be there is the magic combination of policies that can set Iraq right. I have no confidence that the Bush administration will adapt those policies. It is also true that the best reason for both staying in and leaving Iraq is what happens if we do the opposite. Staying in Iraq means being stuck in the middle of a mid-grade civil war that we cannot fix or end, while our global position degrades each day and our military grows more disillusioned and bogged down. Leaving Iraq means plunging it into a brutal bloodbath that could possibly pull the entire region into war--and it would be our fault. There is no good option. But I cannot continue to support a failed policy on the grounds that some administration, somewhere, could still solve the Iraqi dilemma. This one can't. And I can no longer ask American soldiers to die for our leadership's mistakes.