On the Rule of Law in Ferguson

After the grand jury decision in Ferguson and the sometimes-violent aftermath, I wrote a piece for Rare explaining--but not excusing--why people reacted the way they did. It's not very long, but might be summed up by a friend's comment on Facebook, "Well what did you expect to happen when you treated people like niggers?"

My piece is here. If I get a chance, I'll share a roundup of some of the most poignant writing on the aftermath. 

I hope you have/had a wonderful Thanksgiving, or Thursday, if you don't happen to live in America.

bellum medicamenti delenda est

On Mia Love and Tim Scott

After last week's elections of Rep. Mia Love in Utah and Sen. Tim Scott in South Carolina, the Republican Party faces both a new opportunity in their minority outreach efforts, and a choice.

Although Love and Scott are both black conservatives, they are not the same. While they both tout personal stories that highlight 'pull up from bootstraps' narratives, the differences between them are nether subtle nor meaningless.

If the GOP wants to feel better about its rhetoric toward the poor and minorities without actually addressing their past transgressions, they should embrace Mia Love. If they actually want to address their relationship with black Americans, they could do much worse than Tim Scott.

Neither approach will bring a tidal wave of black support to the Republican Party, but resentment politics repackaged and delivered by a black person is not the way to reach out.

You can read my latest at Rare on this topic here.

bellum medicamenti delenda est

Beyond the Drug War: How Libertarians' Aversion to 'Black Issues' Impedes Their Own Relevance

I have a new piece up at Rare today. In it, I lay out the case that color-conscious criminal justice reform is needed, and libertarians persistent refusal to take these problems head-on undercuts their message of individual liberty.

Take the reaction to the Ferguson protests: only one third of white people surveyed by Pew thought tear gassing and pointing guns at peaceful black protesters (and journalists) was “too far.” Even subtracting the third who answered “I don’t know,” half of those who expressed any opinion thought the police’s actions against the primarily black crowd—captured on countless cameras, phones, and video recorders—were within the range of acceptable behavior.

In a world in which this well-documented, recorded, over-the-top enforcement is tolerated or condoned by a majority of Americans, relying on cameras to rein-in police behavior in minority enclaves or against minorities individually is probably quite naïve.

Other big picture policy shifts like eliminating sex-work prohibitions, broad sentencing reform, and reducing the Pentagon programs that militarize and hyper-weaponize local police would also benefit millions of Americans. However, there’s no reason libertarians should not add an equal protection component to their criminal justice reform wish list and encourage law enforcement agencies to improve community relations with minorities.

You can read the whole thing here.

bellum medicamenti delenda est

My TL;DR on Ta-Nehisi Coates' Reparations Article

Despite many policy disagreements, there is not a writer of social commentary in America I respect and admire more than Ta-Nehisi Coates. I cannot recommend strongly enough that you read his article on reparations in the Atlantic.

That said, I disagree with seeking reparations for black Americans and slave descendants, but not because I disagree with Coates's argument of desert. In fact, I agree that America owes black Americans far more than it has given to date:

Historical, anecdotal, and statistical evidence strongly suggest that blacks, particularly poor blacks, have and continue to disproportionately suffer from police brutality and aggressive (and often, illegal) tactics. In recent years, primarily through the drug war, these behaviors—once primarily limited to inner cities and black neighborhoods—have bled into white enclaves and onto college campuses.

Given the statistical correlation between first contact with the court system and future socio-economic outcomes, particularly among people of color, a serious rethink of our current law enforcement regimes—from laws to funding to procedures governing police contact with the general public—is among the most pressing issues facing young black men in America today. To me, this is of far more pressing importance to American blacks than whether Coates and I each receive a check from the government for the past disadvantages inflicted upon our families.

My response is long, but that's because I think Coates is absolutely correct to say that America's lack of understanding of how it has treated its black citizens--and thus, its fundamental misunderstanding of itself--plagues our present and future. That must change, but I don't think a political and social movement to remedy that is the best way to fix the problems it has caused.

bellum medicamenti delenda est

Libertarians' Racial Blindspot

My friends and former colleagues over at reason rightly note that a cop appears to have been way too aggressive when stopping a college professor for jaywalking:

A police encounter in Tempe, Arizona, over the weekend turned ugly after a campus police officer wrestled Arizona State University professor Ersula Ore to the ground. Video footage shows the officer attempting to pull Ore's hands behind her back and pin her against the dashboard before slamming her onto the ground in the middle of the street.

Ore's crime, evidently, was jaywalking in the middle of the night.

Now, I'd seen people share this story on social media without clicking through, but it was something I wanted to check out. Without seeing her name--or even her gender--but hearing about the incident, I assumed that the professor was likely black and the officer was likely white.

Why? Because black people's history with law enforcement has long been fraught with conflict and the years of police officers treating black people more harshly than they treat your average white person is no secret. Police abuse is by no means exclusive to black people, but it is and has been prevalent since law enforcement and black people have coexisted in this country. And jaywalking is one of those laws that is, for the most part, used as a pretextual stop (as opposed to, say, a priority of law enforcement) because the officer thinks the person is otherwise up to no good.

Police have a special place of disdain in the hearts and minds of many libertarians.* Libertarians often see police as the embodiment of everything that is wrong with the state and their use and abuse of force is wanton and without rhyme or reason. Yet, most black people understand that this sort of abuse happens to them more often, whether it's inherent racism or suspicion on the part of the officer, the policing style in a given neighborhood or area, or the disparate political power of a group of people less able and likely to successfully challenge the behavior of an officer.

I don't think it's a failure of the reason author to point this out, but I would have liked to see it.

Too often, libertarians have asked me in private conversation about what's best described as "respectability politics." That is, because of the dress or language or behavior of young black men particularly that the ire of police is directed their way and therefore results in the myriad criminal justice disparities. But here you have a black female college professor refusing to show ID--as any good libertarian would--and getting thrown to the ground and arrested. How many times does this sort of thing happen to black people before libertarians recognize that maybe her race may have played a role? It's journalism--you're supposed to stick to the facts and keep speculation down, I know. But the fact is black people have a long history in this country of being singled out and abused by people in power and, to my knowledge, there's been no magical moment when that has stopped being true.

I've written about this libertarian blindspot at length in my latest essay at Libertarianism.org.

bellum medicamenti delenda est

*NB: My father was a police officer.  Many years after he retired, he went back to work part time at the police department because it was home to him. I got to know many police officers and I continue to respect police officers today. But that doesn't make the history any less true or troubling.

Some Thoughts on Ta-Nehisi's 'Reparations' Essay

I read TNC's reparations essay  in The Atlantic last night. The following is a slightly edited and modified version of my thoughts on first reading. I plan to read it again one or more times.

1. The piece should be read without reference to the headline. I think the greatest power of the piece is in its history and its ability to frame public policy in a milieu that is seldom discussed or addressed in educational or policy settings. 

2. The history he recounts is only a fraction of the horrors the government and the American people inflicted upon black people for generations. The reason I think this is important is that ideologues, of all stripes, neglect what our government and our country looked like for the vast majority of its history. As I talk about in my upcoming essays for Libertarianism.org, there is a vast chasm between what we think should or will happen given our policy 'druthers and what experience and history tell us has happened. This is a lesson for conservatives, progressives, and libertarians alike.

3. Ultimately, I remain unpersuaded that anything resembling financial reparations would be feasible or effective in combating the damage done to blacks over the course of the past several centuries. Marginally, perhaps, but there is no "good" solution in reparative compensation within the American context. Our system just won't sustain any meaningful shift in that direction. I think, however, that this is a relatively minor point in the piece, headline notwithstanding. The greater message TNC suggests--a historical reckoning of what transpired in this Land of the Free--is, I think, very important to moving forward as a society. How we accomplish that is something I'm still trying to figure out, but a better understanding of American history is a prerequisite first step. A simple glance at the backlash on Twitter should confirm how reactionary and ignorant many people still are about the current state of black America.

4. Somewhat tangentially, when I read The Jungle for a history class on early 20th century America, I was not at all put off by the meatpacking stories or even the conditions of industrialization, horrible though they were. I was most struck by the practice of contract purchases of homes, and I was aghast at its cruelty and inherent unfairness. Ta-Nehisi's essay deals with this topic in a way that cannot help but anger and frustrate an empathetic reader.


For the foregoing reasons, I highly recommend reading the essay, in full, as well as the implicitly suggested reading list throughout the essay, particularly anything and everything by Eric Foner on the Reconstruction era.

bellum medicamenti delenda est

AAG West: 'Just So You Understand Where I'm Coming From'

There's an event in New York City going on right now called the "Strengthening the Relationship Between Law Enforcement and Communities of Color Forum." I don't know much about it, other than the NYPD could stand to learn a lot about how to deal with minorities fairly, so it sounds like a good idea, at least.

Today, Associate Attorney General Tony West gave a speech there in support of a new federal program to study ways to improve how law enforcement deals with persons of color. And while I know better than to endorse any government program solely based on its conceptual framework--let alone a loose framework laid out in a speech--I did want to highlight parts of the speech I think is important.

I come to this discussion as one who has been privileged to work with law enforcement for most of my career -- for several years as a federal prosecutor in a U.S. Attorney's Office; as a lawyer in the California Attorney General's Office; and now as part of the United States Justice Department's leadership. That experience has left me both profoundly grateful for and humbled by the dedication and commitment of so many in law enforcement who serve to keep our communities safer places to live, to work and to play; and who do so with integrity and in compliance with the law.

Theirs is not an easy task, and their duties are often performed under difficult and dangerous circumstances. And the reality for most officers, I believe, is that policing is not a job; it's an honor and profession. It's about service. It's about promoting safety and security and fostering strong neighborhoods for the residents who live there.

I also come to this discussion as my father's son. He was a man born and raised deep in the Jim Crow south. And when the time came for his eldest child and only son to take up driving lessons, dad was my teacher, imparting all the familiar lessons of keeping my eyes on the road and signaling before I turned.

And then there were the lessons not found in any driver's manual; lessons informed by family history and community experience: When -- not if -- you are pulled over by the police for no ostensible reason, keep your hands visibly planted at 10 and 2 until instructed otherwise. Always ask permission before reaching for your license and registration, and even then verbally explain what you're doing. No quick movements. End every sentence with "sir." Speak only when spoken to and never, ever talk back. 

Dad called these "survival skills," and I put them into practice on more than a few occasions, well into adulthood. I suspect that I'm not alone in bringing such divergent, perhaps even conflicting, perspectives to today's discussion.

"Nigger" and Its Symptomatic but Minor Role in American Racism

NB: Please also see update below.

On Friday, Matt Welch tweeted out

Yep, we're having a Conversation About Racism tonight on @IndependentsFBN: Because that scab won't pick itself!  http://t.co/nxl142OJEI
— Matt Welch (@mleewelch) January 17, 2014

The Independents is a show on Fox Business featuring (Lisa) Kennedy (Montgomery), of MTV fame, Matt Welch, editor in chief of Reason magazine, and Kmele Foster, entrepreneur and former chief of America’s Future Foundation, a DC-based non-profit dedicated to developing the next generation of right-of-center public policy folks.

I missed the show, but noticed Mediaite’s  Andrew Kirell picked up the segment on the use of the word “nigger” and considered Kmele’s take “thoughtful.” With all due respect to all involved, all of whom besides Kennedy I know socially or through social media, I found it anything but.

I understand the nature of TV commentary doesn’t lend itself well to nuance and thorough explanation, but I found Kmele’s explanation surprisingly vapid and devoid of evidence. 

First of all, if one chooses to talk about racism broadly, as Matt’s tweet indicated,*** whether or not white people get to use “nigger” should be well down the list of concerns. Poverty, education, incarceration, alienation, and disparate treatment in the public realm are far more important than whether white people sing along to ‘Niggas in Paris.’ Indeed, even broaching the topic because a handful of whites have had career disruptions for perceived racial transgressions—both fair and foul—is in itself myopic and inherently dismissive of the history and legacy of racism in this country. But here we are.

Here’s my transcript of the relevant parts of the segment:

Kmele: “I only [get upset when a white person says “nigger”] when the intention is there….In all seriousness, I wonder about hypersensitivity and being insensitive and if those are not two sides of the same coin and if those both can’t get us into a significant amount of trouble. We have people in this country whose careers have been ruined for using words that sound like “nigger” but have no etymological link to the word nigger. [Kennedy interjects a story about blowback after city council member laughed after using word ‘niggardly.’ Kmele continues:] And that is the hypersensitivity. I think it is indicative of the moment we find ourselves in which is a universe in which most of the racism we would have seen during the civil rights era has been extinguished. We do not find that routinely anymore. And people are, in fact, manufacturing incidents of racism on a regular basis and finding various things that outrage them, calling it ‘racist,’ and nigger is a word that is used routinely in hip-hop music, for example, and is ‘owned’ by that community”

[snip]

Matt: Could it be a sign of health that a large number of people think this word is inadvisable, it makes my ears bleed hearing it because I heard a cop growing up in my neighborhood about how he used to haul all the [niggers] back because who’s going to believe a [nigger]?”  

Kmele: “And that is awful, but no, I don’t think it’s a sign of health. I think it’s a reflection of a tremendous hypocrisy that is pervasive in our society, where I can say any number of things about race you [to Welch] simply can’t say. I can make observations you’re not allowed to make because it might jeopardize your career or any “good thinking person’s” sensibility”

At the beginning of the segment, Kmele said that a lot of people are hypertensive to perceived racism. I actually agree with this, though I think it’s wrong to be reflexively dismissive of all claims because some people overreact. (Although, I’m sure he counts me among them.) People have quick triggers for things that trip their confirmation bias—whether it’s racism, or wrongdoing by the president they oppose, or, ahem, incorrect or overwrought accusations of racism. People who like to yap online or in other public fora often get riled up when they see something that pushes their buttons. This does create an environment in which you have a lot of crying ‘wolf’ when someone seems to run too close to the line of propriety. But I think people who draw checks from Fox News probably shouldn’t be too hard on oft-hollow, reactionary, faux outrage. 

I digress.

Kmele fears that society has become hypersensitive to racism and that people are unfairly maligned for using words that aren’t even “etymologically related” to “nigger” (eg, niggardly). I don’t even have to imagine a situation when someone uses a term with tongue-in-cheek in order to skirt propriety. As a teenager, I distinctly remember playing euchre, in which if you neglect to ‘follow suit’ you’ve committed a foul and ‘reneged.’ More than a few players would jump in and yell “YOU RENIGGER!” knowing full well what they were saying. Etymologically speaking, “renege” and “nigger” aren’t related at all—and I know it may be hard to believe—but people playing cute with language don’t really give a damn about etymology. I have no opinion whatever on the city council member who got in trouble for using ‘niggardly,’ and maybe it was a media-driven overreaction, but it follows the political dust-up was an effort to glean his intent—something Kmele himself said his reaction would be based on—rather than whether the word was Latinate or Greek based. It's a nit, I know, but let's not pretend people can't use 'niggardly' to be disrespectful and cheeky either.

Continuing with the intent aspect, in one respect, I fully agree. As I’ve written before, a man can use “African-American” with every bit of scorn and resentment the utterance of “nigger” reflexively elicits. The use of “nigger” isn’t definitive but rather a possible symptom of racism. For good reasons, “nigger” has earned a special place in the American (and greater Anglophone) lexicon that society has deemed generally out of bounds for members of “outgroups”—those whom could not reasonably be construed to be the subject of the derisive term at issue themselves. If someone of stature or authority uses the term flagrantly and without regard to the public rebuke one may expect from its use, an assumption of racial insensitivity should be expected and possible animus may be inferred.

The context of the conversation I was describing in the link above: a not-long retired police officer I’d just met told me, point blank, that he and his colleagues would likely rough up any “African-American,” innocent or not, who refused an unwarranted search of his person. That he wanted to use “nigger” until he was told of my racial background is telling: out of misplaced respect for my heritage he wouldn’t use “nigger,” but had no qualms telling me he’d beat me up if I were darker and refused his unconstitutional demands. That he would assume such language and behavior would be considered at all acceptable to me having just met me is indicative of the patent disregard he has for black people and why it may, in fact, be important that society now checks people who blithely use “nigger” in ‘polite’ conversation.

This, of course, takes us to Matt’s interjection about cringing about his experience with police treatment of blacks when he was growing up. Matt, like me, is in the age cohort sometimes referred to as Generation X—though there are a few years between us. We grew up in the Cold War and after the Civil Rights Movement had petered out from its prominence in the late 1960s. We didn’t grow up under Jim Crow and never saw the Klan inflict political violence against black folks. Lynchings have long been a relic of the past and we can all agree that sort of racism is, largely, behind us. But, as my friend Jamelle Bouie put it yesterday, the Civil Rights Movement wasn’t about bus seats and drinking fountains, it was a system of oppression that blacks in the United States had suffered under since the nation’s inception. Police abuse was part and parcel of that system, and we have empirical evidence that a substantial amount of it continues to this day.

New York City’s ‘Stop and Frisk’ program is an anti-gun measure in which police are to invoke so-called Terry stops, named for the decision in Terry v. Ohio 392 U.S.1 (1964), in which police officers were explicitly granted the power to “frisk” people they “reasonably suspected” to be engaging or about to engage in criminal behavior. This was “for the protection of [the officer] and others in the area to conduct a carefully limited search of the outer clothing of such persons in an attempt to discover weapons which might be used to assault him.” While a “search” under the Fourth Amendment, a ‘frisk’ for weapons is distinct from a full search of a suspect after arrest, but it still must be “reasonable.”

In a footnote of that that opinion, Chief Justice Warren wrote: 

“The President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice found that ‘in many communities, field interrogations are a major source of friction between the police and minority groups.’ It was reported that the friction caused by ‘misuse of field interrogations’ increases ‘as more police departments adopt ‘aggressive patrol’ in which officers are encouraged routinely to stop and question persons on the street who are unknown to them, who are suspicious, or whose purpose for being abroad is not really evident.’ While frequency with which ‘frisking’ forms a part of field interrogation practice varies tremendously with locale, and the particular officer, it cannot help but be a severely exacerbating factor in police-community tensions. This is particularly true where the “stop and frisk” of youths or minority group members is ‘motivated by the officers’ perceived need to maintain the power image of the beat officer, and aim sometimes accomplished by humiliating anyone who attempts to undermine police control of the streets.’” Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1,(1964) fn 11, at 15, internal citations omitted, emphasis added. 

Sound familiar? That's Civil Rights Era Supreme Court Justice talking about Civil Rights Era police procedure, abuse, and consequent marginalization of communities. Over four million stops under NYPD’s ‘Stop and Frisk’ program since 2002, a majority of whom were young and black or Latino, and nearly 90 percent were innocent of any crime or outstanding charge, with, according to Mayor Bloomberg himself, roughly 8,000 guns recovered—a whopping 0.2% of stops. Either the NYPD has no idea what a “reasonable” suspicion is or they’re effectively suspending Fourth Amendment protections for black and brown people at their whim. 

Chief Justice Warren writes, “[I]t is simply fantastic to urge that such a procedure performed in public by a policeman while the citizen stands helpless, perhaps facing a wall with his hands raised, is a ‘petty indignity.’ It is a serious intrusion into the sanctity of the person, which may inflict great indignity and rouse strong resentment, and it is not to be undertaken lightly.” (Terry, at 16-17.) I’ll get more into Terry in another post, but Kmele’s assertion that most of the racism from the 1960s has been “extinguished” willfully glosses over the legacy of the racism which remains. To say we don’t find it routinely is patently absurd because, in the NYPD and elsewhere, it IS THE ROUTINE, whether or not ‘nigger’ ever escapes the cops’ mouths. (Even it did, who’d believe the nigger anyway?) 

Asserting that police have shed their history of exploiting and targeting blacks and other minorities is entirely based on faith. It may or may not be true on the whole—in fact, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say police are, on net, less racist than they were 50 years ago—but to say it’s been effectively ‘extinguished’ has no provable basis. Beyond New York, other arrest, sentencing, and incarceration data indicate there are racist legacies throughout the criminal justice system all over the country. Add to this the pressure of plea bargaining, the secretive, retributive nature of policing, criminal conspiracies among cops that often target minorities, and the public reassurances by people like Kmele that racism is so very rare, you have layers of built-in protections that can be used against the most honest and forthright claims of racism. The aggregate criminal justice data, anecdotal evidence, and lengthy history of racism in this country--save a magical date or time at which people in authority stopped being racist I'm not aware of--doesn't support, for me anyway, 'clearly not racist' as a default position.

Given the complications of prejudice and the human mind, and our nation’s inescapable racial history, it’s impossible to say ‘how racist’ police or other institutions still are in this country, but the hypocrisy lies not in whether we are too hard on whites for ‘racial observations’ people like Kmele can make. Rather, it’s that we allow those assertions to go unchallenged depending on what color the person who makes them is.

Shifting cultural norms is how civil society changes itself. That individuals lose TV shows or suffer professional consequences when they express ideas deemed abhorrent or anathema to what society deems appropriate is how civil society is supposed to work. I, for one, am glad American society has gotten to the point where racism--especially among those in authority--is talked about and condemned, instead of ignored and brushed aside as it has been since the Founding.

bellum medicamenti delenda est 

 ***UPDATE: Kmele reached out to me to mention I should have watched the whole show before judging because they did tackle some issues, such as Stop and Frisk and Immigration. I saw the other two clips on the website, one entitled "When does a joke go too far?" which holds absolutely no interest for me, and the other "Is ObamaCare a racist term?" It turns out that was probably more a function of SEO than an adequate descriptor of the segment--as the hosts explain their (noble) reasons for dedicating a show to race. Unfortunately, for those of us unable to watch the show in its entirety, the online clip, available here, is partial and cuts off as the debate gets interesting. I'll poke around for a full cut of the show and update as appropriate.

From what (admittedly little) I've been able to watch, this seems more like good idea, bad execution, not unlike Rand Paul's Howard speech. I think the hosts, whether we agree or disagree, approached the topic in good faith. But the clips available don't paint the best picture of the crux of the debate and tackle primarily the trappings of racism instead of why it's actually a problem of public policy. -JPB

Living While Black: Anecdotes about Dealing with Police

Due to the genetic happenstance of my bi-raciality, I don't look black. This has led to more than a few "No, really, I'm black" conversations, but generally speaking, I can pass for white if I want to. Passing isn't a new phenomenon, but it does generally protect me from unnecessarily hostile contact with police and other authority figures that regularly harassed what Malcolm called "recognized Negroes." That said, I know racially biased harassment is very real.

Gene Denby of NPR Code Switch started a conversation about police interactions on Twitter last Thursday. I Storify'd it so you can read it here, but I want to delve further into why they are more than simple anecdotes of inconvenience.

Most countries have foundational myths that underlie the ethos of the national character. Much of our national myth involves freedom and Enlightenment liberalism: property rights, religious freedom, and the dignity of the individual are among the core values which under-gird our national identity. This narrative leads to national cliches like "If you work hard enough, you can do anything" and 'pulling oneself up by the bootstraps' is the key to success.  The accompanying narrative overlooks what that actually looked like for much of our history including, inter alia, discriminatory legal regimes. This is important not, as many think, to enable a "victimhood" mentality among descendants. This is important to reaffirm that this country has only recently recognized that the "inalienable rights" explicitly assigned to all of mankind in our founding document apply to women and many people of color. This recognition is to understand that, since our country's inception, there have been parallel sets of rules and laws for  marginalized people that are distinct from and harsher than those for the majority. It also means "dignity of the individual" doesn't apply equally.

Southern Avenger, RIP

Jack Hunter has resigned from Senator Paul's staff and retired the moniker "The Southern Avenger." I don't revel in this because I never called for his job. But barring a full explanation of what exactly he repudiates from his years of race-baiting and Southern apologia, this is probably for the best. I am glad that he took the extra step of distancing himself from the moniker and I hope he lands somewhere he can be useful and further distance himself from his controversial past.

UPDATE: Uh, you know, this guy may just be a horrible human being. More from the Washington Free Beacon.On criticism of the movie, The Patriot, in which a South Carolina landowner fights for liberty but neglects to mention that teeny little problem the South had with liberty for all:

“Let’s convince the producers of the Patriot to reshoot a scene in which Spike Lee and [then-NAACP head] Kweisi Mfume are both tied to trees while Mel Gibson whips the hell out of them,” Hunter continued. “Mr. Lee and Mr. Mfume will get the pity they so desperately desire, and millions of Americans—especially the Southern Avenger—will get a real kick out of watching them squirm.”

Get it? Tying niggers to trees and whipping them for expressing an opinion is high comedy to this naive young man of...26. I'm sure since it's just talking about a movie about whipping them it's not really  racist. I mean, it's not like he wants vengeance for anythi....oh.

bellum medicamenti delenda est

One last comment on this latest Paul fiasco

The reason it's important that Rand Paul seriously reexamines his approach to race and his familial ties to neo-Confederates is because to ignore it is to implicitly say "I don't give a damn what black people think." Why should that matter?

Because it is societally unacceptable to openly say "I don't give a damn what black people think." Not because black people all think alike (we don't), or because black people vote overwhelmingly Democratic and thus aren't an important constituency to Republican politicians. It's because to say so is an unnecessary insult. People who are insulted for no good reason aren't going to be very open to what you have to say. And for those of us who believe what we do because we think it's the best thing for the country, and black people particularly, that the Pauls continually surround themselves with people who reject the historical cause for our ancestors' liberation and embrace the government of those who enslaved our people--in the name of liberty, no less--is a massive and repugnant obstacle to our goals of a freer society.

For decades, "states' rights," "liberty," and a host of other codewords were used by politicians and activists to preserve slavery, and later block anti-lynching legislation, desegregation, and the Civil Rights Era generally. As libertarians, it is incumbent upon us to be as inclusive in our messaging and in convincing people that we want more liberty for all people, not just the white ones. It's hard to make that case when the most prominent faces of libertarianism give speeches in front of rebel flags to say the South was right and have people who run websites called "The Southern Avenger" run their digital PR shop.

The Southern bloc that ran the Senate for so many years didn't need to wear sheets or say "nigger" to pass (or block) laws to the detriment of black folks. Likewise, that one of Paul's staff has put his mask away is of little comfort to those who still hear the echoes of the Old South in a Southern senator's rhetoric.

This is why Paul and Hunter should be more vocal in their denunciation of the "Southern Avenger" and fully come to terms with the GOP's problematic history with race, and their own.

bellum medicamenti delenda est

It's the racism, stupid

In the past few days, as we go through our latest wave of questionable personal and professional ties of Ron and Rand Paul, their defenders have increasingly moved toward a "Civil War is over, get over it" line of defense. I find this ironic, given that it's the Pauls' relationship to people still holding on to the Lost Cause that continually brings them problems, but let's grant, for the sake of argument, that fighting over the Civil War is indeed beside the point.

Guess what happens when you google "Ron Paul r" or "Rand Paul r":

If Rand Paul wants to be president, and his supporters want that to become reality, allegations of racism have to be put to bed. Not brushed aside like "Dude, that was like 150 years ago!" or "But his policies aren't racist..." It doesn't matter. I understand that winning politics has never been libertarians' strong suit, but politics is a popularity contest and racism is unpopular. Perception is everything in politics, and right now, the Pauls are perceived to have a long history of race problems.

"Don't look behind the Confederate battle flag curtain" is not a viable political strategy.

Presidents have to delegate massive amounts of authority and heavily rely on their closest advisers. Thus, the people with whom they surround themselves will in all probability influence their decision making as president. If one is known to surround himself with questionable people, the public will be right to question what kind of people will have his ear as president.

The Pauls race problems are not going to go away so long as they continue to flout public sentiment and protect those who cost them politically. Libertarians, by extension, continue to be hurt by defending the asinine decisions by the Pauls to protect their cronies who make a living bashing the outcome of the Civil War...because, you know, it ended that whole race-based slavery thing.

bellum medicamenti delenda est

Why can't the Pauls get past their race problems?

Another day, another associate of the Ron/Rand Paul political camp in race trouble. Yesterday, Sen. Rand Paul's new media chief, Jack Hunter, was outed (to those of us who ignore such people) as “The Southern Avenger,” a Confederate battle flag luchador mask wearing Southern apologist who used to host a radio show. Instead of owning up to his clear, unambiguous, and appalling behavior in his past career, Mr. Avenger Hunter blames unbalanced reporting at the Washington Free Beacon for his unceremonious unmasking:

My Statement on Recent Attacks

Today’s article that brought my not-very-hidden radio pundit background to light does not accurately reflect me or my full, or true, views.

The role of a radio host is different from that of a political operative. In radio, sometimes you’re encouraged to be provocative and inflammatory. I’ve been guilty of both, and am embarrassed by some of the comments I made precisely because they do not represent me today. I was embarrassed by some of them even then.

I am also no longer a guy who judges beer drinking contests in a wrestling mask. Things change. We all hopefully grow up.

I abhor racism and have always treated everyone I’ve met with dignity and respect as individuals. This was true in the past and it is true now.

The controversial comments are also but a fraction of my decade of writing and talking about conservative, Tea Party and libertarian causes.

I have also written columns over the years promoting African-American history and politics, and many other writings that tell a far different story than what the headlines portray today. Not surprisingly, the reporter chose not to balance her piece by citing any of those columns.

“Attacks” on “not-very-hidden” punditry, as if those of us who inhabit a social world free from nostalgic slavery-apologia were supposed to assume that a United States senator would knowingly hire a man known as “The Southern Avenger”—a hostile, vengeful, character who equates the NAACP and the Ku Klux Klan—and that hiring should or would be assumed to be common knowledge without much fanfare.

I can't speak to Mr. Hunter's past or current embarrassment about what he said or did as a pundit, but many of us seem to make our names without inflaming racial tensions that have haunted its country since its inception, don't also take charge of local chapters of slavery apologist organizations, and continue using that nickname as one progresses through our professional careers as he has. As recently as 2010, Hunter gave airtime to Tom Woods, a fellow-traveler in Civil War revisionism, on his radio show. Perhaps more telling, the above non-apology is listed on “SouthernAvenger.com,” supporting his contention his past is not very hidden, but it doesn't really explain how he's attempted at all to put his youthful indiscretion behind him, save scrubbing the many iterations of the Confederate battle flag off his website.

What exactly is he avenging now, anyway?

More Race Problems from the Pauls

It's as if the Paul family just drives vans around white neighborhoods in the South playing 'Dixie' and whatever fool chases it like an ice cream truck gets a job on staff:

[Rand] Paul hired Jack Hunter, 39, to help write his book The Tea Party Goes to Washington during his 2010 Senate run. Hunter joined Paul’s office as his social media director in August 2012.

From 1999 to 2012, Hunter was a South Carolina radio shock jock known as the “Southern Avenger.” He has weighed in on issues such as racial pride and Hispanic immigration, and stated his support for the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
During public appearances, Hunter often wore a mask on which was printed a Confederate flag.

Prior to his radio career, while in his 20s, Hunter was a chairman in the League of the South, which “advocates the secession and subsequent independence of the Southern States from this forced union and the formation of a Southern republic.”

Read the whole thing at the Free Beacon here.

A Quick Comment on Perspective

My friend wrote to me this morning about his thoughts on the Trayvon Martin case. It was moving and awful, as he too experienced harassment and abuse of force at the hands of people who thought a young black man was in the wrong place to be up to anything but trouble.

Shortly thereafter I see a retweet of "Chef Geoff" Tracy on Twitter:

Virginia ABC law prohibits us from using the words "Happy Hour" in any advertising. Are we still in America?

Yes, it's a stupid law. Yes, bar and restaurant owners should work to get rid of the law and I would fully support that effort. But given that a 17 year old black kid was hunted down and shot by a man with dubious authority, at best, who was explicitly told by police dispatch not to pursue and engage him, with no legal repercussions to this point, I think it's a tad overwrought to start questioning the sanctity of America over ad restrictions.

This isn't to say that Trayvon's killing is necessarily Chef Geoff's fight, but I think this underscores a lot of the disconnect between what liberty means to the business-centric folk and what liberty means to those of us who see and/or experience the abuse of power in ways more threatening to personal safety, security, and dignity. Chef Geoff isn't at all wrong to claim injustice--the Virginia alcohol laws are harmful to business and that directly affects his livelihood, and he has every right to be upset--but in the grand scheme of things, a catchy phrase for an ad just doesn't compare to some guy with a gun and a power trip getting away with hunting down and killing a black kid because 'he looked suspicious.'

I have nothing at all against Chef Geoff and have heard only great things about him and his notable establishments. He's not guilty of anything other than slight overstatement and I do not wish to impugn him in any way. I just thought his comment reflects a language gap between people who rightly fear threats to economic liberty, but may not give as much thought to threats to personal liberty that so many others face on a daily basis. It's not that he's wrong, it's just that he--and so many others who care about liberty--could use a dose of perspective.

bellum medicamenti delenda est

Smokin' Joe Frazier, RIP

Because of other projects and responsibilities tomorrow, I'm not going to have the time to write up everything I wanted to say about Joe Frazier, who died tonight of liver cancer. However, I wanted to implore the people who may otherwise not pay attention to the coverage about his life to pay attention to his relationship with Muhammad Ali.

I'm not sure I've ever written here about my deep affinity for The Greatest, but suffice it to say that there was not an athlete I admired more than Muhammad Ali--even though all of his meaningful fights happened before I was born. But Joe Frazier's legacy will always be told in tandem with his professional and, more to the point here, personal fights with Ali. And despite my profound admiration for Ali as a fighter and as a man, Ali's treatment of Frazier was utterly disgraceful.

Ali was a young, brash, anti-authoritarian man of great pride and braggadocio. Ultimately, I think his overabundance of confidence was one of his greatest strengths--of which there were many. But he went too far with Frazier--humiliating him and calling him a Tom and Gorilla, among many other awful things. I understand that Ali was trying to get into Frazier's head, but whatever line there is between trash talk and humiliation, Ali crossed it repeatedly with the exuberance and glee of a bully.

Frazier took it--and took it to Ali.

Their relationship was important to note because, much more than it was with Sonny Liston, the Ali-Frazier feud was used as a metaphor to describe the social turmoil among blacks emerging from the Civil Rights Era: was our identity to be one of patriotism and patience (Frazier)? Or was it to be of proud, unyielding defiance of authority (Ali)?  Of course, we all forge our own identities as individuals, and fittingly, these two men surpassed the narrative arcs assigned to them to become the more complicated sports icons and historical figures we acknowledge today.

In time, Ali apologized for what he said and did over the course of their intertwined careers. I read recently that Joe had publicly forgiven him--which is a testament to the kind of man Joe Frazier was. No man should take the verbal abuse and humiliation he took from Ali--and Joe Frazier was so much the better man for that forgiveness.

Smokin' Joe Frazier, RIP.

UPDATE: A few people flagged an article on Twitter. Following the Thrilla in Manila, this was filed on deadline at Sports Illustrated. This is what sports journalism should look like.

bellum medicamenti delenda est

Quote of the Day

While cover [sic] for the receptionist at my work, I have seen a lot. The blacks come in not even dressed to work, they list felony's [sic] on the applications and some do not look like they really want to work. The hispanics - come in with tatoos [sic] all ...exposed, scary, do not speak english, have a rap sheet, and even put they just got out of jail on application [sic]. I do feel bad for them because they do not realize that their past will haunt them forever and the way they present themselves has a lot to do with it. I have some black and hispanic co-workers who have family's [sic] and care about their jobs. But some you just cannot help.

Cindy Taylor, facebook commenter on this Daily Caller post on black unemployment, entitled "Black unemployment: racism or personal responsibilty?" [sic]



I wonder if simplistic views on race are correlated with bad grammar. I kid, of course, but the piece itself reads like a high school sociology project and is as illuminating as a flashlight is to a blind man.

UPDATE: The Daily Caller has removed the facebook thread I linked to. (sad face.) If reading I-know-a-black-guy expert opinions from people who prefer to remain anonymous is your thing, you can follow the story comments here. So far, the post has 127 facebook likes. SMH

Crash Course in Black History: New N****r Rule

By now you've heard that President Obama has released his "long form" birth certificate in order to quell the two-year-old conspiracy theory that a liberal cabal has managed to pull off the greatest case of identity fraud in human history.

Honestly, before I get into the meat of this post, I just want to say that this was the most preposterous allegation/conspiracy theory I have ever heard. The JFK assassination Cuba-Mafia-KGB conspiracy, the 'faked' Moon landing and '9/11 was an inside job' (aka "Truthers") all have more plausible premises--and they are all bullshit too. To have pulled this off, one would have needed to plan, implement, and maintain a flawless conspiracy over the course of four decades between multiple state agencies of Illinois and Hawaii, his posh private school in Hawaii, two Ivy League schools, the Illinois Bar Association, the government of Kenya and/or Indonesia, the Social Security Administration, the State Department, the IRS and god knows what other federal departments and kept it all a secret.

Elvis and Tupac are sitting on a beach somewhere saying "They can't really believe this shit, can they?"

Anyway, a recurring complaint from the Right since the release this morning has been "I just don't get why he didn't release this sooner!" The quick answer is: because he shouldn't have to. This accusation was ridiculous on its face and for all the 'respect for the office' the Right likes to trot out when it suits them, addressing this idiocy really is beneath the president of the United States. But as my friend Adam Serwer so eloquently wrote over at WaPo's Plum Line today:

Aside from being one of the most idiotic moments in American political history, this marks a level of personal humiliation no previous president has ever been asked to endure. Other presidents have been the target of crazy conspiracy theories, sure, but few have been as self-evidently absurd as birtherism. None has been so clearly rooted in anxieties about the president’s racial identity, because no previous American president has been black.

This whole situation is an embarrassment to the country. Yesterday Jesse Jackson described birtherism as racial “code,” but there’s nothing “coded” about it. It’s just racism. I don’t mean that everyone who has doubts about the president’s birthplace is racist. Rather, the vast majority have been deliberately misled by an unscrupulous conservative media and by conservative elites who have failed or refused to challenge these doubts.

And birtherism is only one of a number of racially charged conspiracy theories that have bubbled out of the right-wing swamp and have been allowed to fester by conservative elites. Those who have spent the last two years clinging to the notion that the president wasn’t born in the United States, who have alleged that the president wasn’t intelligent enough to write his own autobiography or somehow coasted to magna cum laude at Harvard law, are carrying on new varieties of an old, dying tradition of American racism. Similar accusations dogged early black writers like Frederick Douglass and Phyllis Wheatley, whose brilliance provoked an existential crisis among people incapable of abandoning myths of black intellectual inferiority.

Indeed, asking more of black people than is asked of or expected from whites is as old as racism itself. Black 'pioneers' have always had to face extra challenges from people incapable of dealing with black achievement or legitimacy. The older generations of black folk would tell their kids--as my father told me--that black people should never try to be as good as our white counterparts: we must strive to be better because 'as good' would not be good enough. (Both because of my complexion and meaningful societal change over my lifetime, this has not been an academic or professional hindrance to me. But the message took.)

Such is the standard operating procedure to confront what has been called, most notably by comedian Paul Mooney, the "New Nigger Rule." My definition follows:

A NNR is a legal or administrative procedure which is enforced with benign pretense, yet has the demonstrable effect of abetting racism, prejudice, or otherwise just screwing the black guy. Historical examples include, but are not limited to, the Grandfather Clause, poll taxes, and literacy/constitutional knowledge tests to vote.

Nota bene: all of these are forms of disenfranchisement.

Mark Thompson of the League explains what Obama had to do to get his long form and make it public:

Quite literally, in order to release this document, the President had to ask to be treated as being above the law, even if it is a relatively trivial law in the grand scheme of things.  Quite understandably, the State of Hawaii decided that this was a wise idea.  That so many are prepared to insist that the President had an obligation to ask that he be treated as above the law from a very early date is far more troubling.

That Obama should have been expected to file a waiver to get an obscure document that no one else has had to produce and make it public to dispel a rumor based on absurd conjecture and outright lies is clearly a New Nigger Rule.

I agree with Adam that it would not be fair to call all Birthers "racists." Maligning or otherwise assigning such terms to groups of people is unproductive and usually wrong factually and morally. That said, there can be no question at all that Obama had to deal with this because he's black. That is a fucking shame, and that is why he didn't release it earlier.

And he never should have had to.

bellum medicamenti delenda est

BYU's Honor Code

For those of you who don't follow college basketball, Brigham Young University is coming to the end of one of their best, if not the best, regular seasons in their program's history. Earlier this week, however, they benched their leading rebounder, Brandon Davies, for the rest of the season and including the NCAA tournament.

Hmm. Since it was an 'Honor Code' violation and not 'conduct detrimental to the team' or anything illegal, the first thing I thought of was "What, did he sleep with a white girl?"

Yep.

Brandon Davies was dismissed from BYU's basketball team after he admitted to having sexual relations with his girlfriend, the Salt Lake Tribune reported Wednesday.

BYU's honor code forbids students from having premarital sex and instructs them to "live a chaste and virtuous life."

I'm sure every other football and basketball player at BYU has been chaste and virtuous.

Look, I'm not calling anyone racist and I don't know what happened. BYU has these rules and place and that's their business--and Davies knew it going in. But does anyone know how often BYU kids get busted for this sort of thing? How regularly is it enforced? And to this degree?

Something I'll be keeping an eye on. Hit me up if you know anything about the way this goes down or has gone down in the past. Will do some digging this weekend.

UPDATE: According to several sources with anecdotal evidence, this is relatively common at BYU among the general student population, though I haven't seen or heard anything about other star athletes getting burned.

My general problem was that such a rule is inherently subjectively applied. Maybe if the administration hears about anyone, they take them down, but I can't believe that he's the first star athlete at BYU who was known to violate the Honor Code that way.

Oh well. 

Quote of the Day: Post-Racial America

"I was talking with some of the parents from leo high school, and the general consensus is that the busing of the harding students to our school is going to create a mass exodus of wealthy famillies from the area, as... well as many of us pulling our children out of the school and sending them to cantebury [prep school] and bishop luers [one of two local Catholic high schools], also auburn schools came up in the conversation. the long term effect of this will be the selling of homes to move to better school districts. It really sucks that i just paid $400,000 for a house in the best school district in northern indiana, only to have a bunch of saggy pant snoop dog wanna be's trucked into my neighborhood like cattle." (emphasis mine)

- A blog comment, supposedly from a Leo High School parent, discussing the closure of my poor, mostly black high school alma mater and the forced busing of its students to the rest of the mostly white district and specifically to Leo, the (overwhelmingly white) crown jewel of the East Allen County School system.


Welcome to post-racial America.


Via my friend Jamie Garwood.

Addendum: This is not to say I support the busing plan -- indeed, this battle has been raging since I was a student and I'm generally opposed for several reasons. I shared this for the characterization of the school and the students in it--not any tacit support of the plan. -jpb