Ta-Nehisi Coates

One reason we find the NYPD explicitly profiling Muslims and spying on them in colleges up and down the eastern sea-board is because it's what the public actually wants:

According to the poll, conducted by Quinnipiac University, 58 percent of voters said the department acted appropriately in its efforts to fight terrorism and did not unfairly target Muslims; 29 percent disagreed. The department's efforts drew greater support from Republicans than Democrats, and from whites than blacks or Hispanics. But in all those cases, a plurality supported the department's efforts.

It's yours...

I haven't blogged about the shooting of Trayvon Martin by a neighborhood watch captain, George Zimmerman, because I've found the killing depressingly familiar. For those who haven't kept up, the details are as follows:

Police say Zimmerman called police around 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 26 to report a suspicious person. The dispatcher told him to wait for patrol officers. At one point, Zimmerman followed the teen, stepped out of the car and they began to fight, Lee said.

"When dispatchers told him not to do anything, it was just a recommendation," Lee said. "There is evidence that George Zimmerman acted in self-defense."

He would not say what the evidence was.

Why Zimmerman got out of the car and what led to the altercation are still unknown. Zimmerman, who had a concealed weapons permit, carried a black Kel Tek 9mm semi-automatic pistol.

Martin's pockets contained $22, Skittles candy and a can of iced tea when he died, police said. The family filed a lawsuit to demand recordings of the conversation between Zimmerman and the police dispatcher.

Police have declined to release the tape until the investigation is concluded.

"They are passing the buck," said family attorney Benjamin Crump. "The entire time he was defending Mr. Zimmerman. But we'll see what will come next."

The theory that Zimmerman was acting in self-defense got me wondering about the threshold for such a claim. As it turns out, Flordia has one of the broadest set of self-defense statutes in the country. Unlike many states, you need not retreat before employing self-defense, for instance. The relevant portions of the law--as much as I can tell--seem to be as follows.

Zimmerman could lawfully shoot Martin if he, "knew or had reason to believe that an unlawful and forcible entry or unlawful and forcible act was occurring or had occurred." Know unlawful act had occurred or was occurring. If Zimmerman had "reason to believe" such an act was in progress, the police have declined to cite it. My hope is that the vague charge of looking "suspicious" would not meet that threshold.

Zimmerman could also lawfully shoot Martin if Zimmerman was..

...attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony

This strikes me as a really broad self-defense statute. If I'm reading this right, Zimmerman can shoot Martin if he can show that he believed it was "necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm." In other words, the objective of fact of being in danger need not be demonstrated, only the perception. In a case where there are no witnesses, the only person who can actually testify to that belief, is the shooter. The "commission of a forcible felony" seems to offer even more wiggle room, though I'm not sure.

The implications of such a broadly-drawn statute are rather breath-taking, and basically seem to defer to the judgements of the police and prosecutors. If you are someone, for whatever reason, who elicits the sympathies of law enforcement you likely will walk free--as Zimmerman has. If you don't, and law enforcement decided to make an issue of your alleged "belief" than you likely would be arrested.

I am not sure what to make of Zimmerman's history, or its relevance to its case. Nevertheless here it is. He was arrested in 2005 for "suspicion of battery on a law enforcement officer." Those charges were dropped. A neighbor has claimed, anonymously, that Zimmerman had been repeatedly accused of overly-aggressive tactics. Given the lack of details in the former charge, and the lack of attribution in the latter, I'm not sure how much any of this clarifies.

One observation. Many non-Jews and Jews view Jews as a distinct group within (or even outside of) the larger caucasian group. I think this is important context for understanding the Jewish reaction to the likes of Farrakhan. There's something far less threatening (to me, at least) about Farrakhan calling whites the devil than when he targeted his hatred specifically at Jews. Whites are the majority and are at little risk of widespread, systemic discrimination. 

For Jews it has been a common experience across the planet and over generations, even if it's been relatively benign in the US. Even though there's no comparison to be made between the scope and extent of anti-semitism in the US as compared to racism/discrimination toward african americans, jews remain a minority, subject at times to the whims and biases of the majority.

Metric, Metric, Metric. As always I love the air in these lyrics:

The doctor, the writer, the hairdresser, 

Felt up and fingerprinted waiting for the train.

I like RG3, but I'm always going to be against giving up two first round picks and a second rounder--sight unseen. And it's always "sight unseen" until you play in the pros. With that said, I've done enough occasional football blogging to realize the randomness of it all. It's big news. And if only to not hear Limbaugh-esque talk about a desirous media, I hope it works out. (As much as a Cowboys fan can hope for such things.)

I really enjoyed Ezra Klein's piece in the New York Review of Books, an issue which, to my liberal eyes, looked a lot simpler than it evidently is:

The key mistake most people make when they look at Washington--and the key misconception that characters like Abramoff would lead you to--is seeing Washington as a cash economy. It's a gift economy. That's why firms divert money into paying lobbyists rather than spending every dollar on campaign contributions. Campaign contributions are part of the cash economy. Lobbyists are hired because they understand how to participate in the gift economy. 

Lobbyists build up relationships with politicians they like and, in many cases, agree with. They give those politicians money and they invite them out for dinner, or to their corporate box to watch ball games. They argue for the client's interests, but they don't argue too hard, or cross any ethical boundaries. And, over time, the politician comes to see the lobbyist as a friend. After all, the lobbyist is doing all sorts of thing that, in a person's normal life, would lead to friendship, or at least a warm business relationship: he's supporting the politician's work and spending lots of time having interesting conversations with him and showing up at his events. 

The lobbyists are smart and personable and interesting and connected. They have expertise he needs, and connections that can help him, and information about what other political actors are doing that gives him a leg up. It is a perfect mixture of ideological comradeship, financial perks, and personal affinity. But it is the sense of comradeship and affinity that makes the whole thing work. In many cases, the lobbyist actually is the politician's friend. She is his former staffer, or a colleague he used to see three times a week at the congressional gym. 

After all, there are any number of wealthy, well-connected people who might like to bend a senator's ear. But senators have limited time and busy schedules. They can't make space for every supplicant with a thick bill roll and a fat rolodex. And so clever lobbying shops have figured out a way to get to politicians: hire their friends. Hire the people they have already demonstrated an interest in talking to, and accepting counsel from.

In this model, the point of lobbyists is not so much to change votes as to change the legislative agenda. Perhaps you are a legislator interested both in reforming the nation's drug laws and in cutting taxes on large corporations. If you focus your time on tax cuts for large corporations, you'll get an enormous amount of money, aid, and attention from lobbyists. If you spend your time on drug policy, you'll be ignored and your campaign will be underfunded. The disparity is even greater on smaller issues where there may not be another side to engage the debate: if a group of paper companies spends a couple of million dollars hiring lobbyists to persuade politicians of the merits of a change to an obscure provision of the tax code that will net the paper companies a couple of billion dollars, there is likely no one on the other side of that issue amassing materials to explain why this change isn't a good idea.

To echo, Tom Ricks, why are we still in Afghanistan?

American officials scrambled Monday to understand why a veteran Army staff sergeant, a married father of two only recently deployed here, left his base a day earlier to massacre at least 16 civilians, 9 of them children, in a rural stretch of southern Afghanistan. The devastating, unexplained attack deepened the sense of siege for Western personnel in this country, as denunciations brought a moment of unity to three major Afghan factions: civilians, insurgents and government officials.

It's yours...

I saw Point Blank this weekend, and really enjoyed it. Anything I can say about it would make it sound dumber than it is. Not that it's smart--smart isn't the point. It's just really, really, really entertaining--and entertaining without bombastic excess.

Here's a piece from Jonathan Chait that's largely sympathetic to Derrick Bell. It focuses on Joel Pollak, and the charge of anti-Semitism. I think this paragraph warrants some discussion:

None of this is to say that Bell was merely an inoffensive academic toiling at his labors until Pollak decided to smear him. He's a justifiably controversial figure, whose complexity is well captured by this 1993 profile by James Traub. Among other problems, Bell refused to condemn Louis Farrakhan at a time when most black intellectuals did. Bell is not an anti-Semite, but he has tolerated anti-Semitism.

In the course of our three-hour conversation Bell's genial expression slipped only once--when I suggested that he was "endorsing" Farrakhan. "I'm not endorsing him," Bell flashed, pounding the air with his fist. "No, no. I resent being asked because I'm black to jump up and denounce Farrakhan when he says things that are despicable when nobody comes and asks me when [Pat] Robertson made his despicable comments [at the Republican Convention] to jump up and do that." 

I asked Bell about Gates's argument, advanced in a New York Times op-ed piece last summer, that black intellectuals have an obligation to denounce black bigots. Bell wasn't interested in the question. "If that's what Skip wanted to do," he shrugged, "that's fine. My criticism would only enhance his standing. The only thing it does is serve as a comfort to whites who are upset." 

That's Derek Bell's bottom line: if it comforts whites, it's bad; if it comforts blacks--i.e., Farrakhan--it's good.

Incredibly, Palin seems incapable of uttering the word "slavery" when discussing the Civil War.

Here's something interesting form A.O. Scott's review of John Carter:

That would be John Carter himself (Taylor Kitsch), a Confederate veteran with a knack for mortal combat and a gloomy aversion to same. But the fight finds him, first in a box canyon on loan from a John Ford picture and then -- nonspoiler alert! -- on Mars. The red planet resembles the Old West both geologically (a lot of dusty red rocks) and thematically. 

A Civil War rages between two factions of Red Men, though it is actually the green, four-armed humanoids known as Tharks who serve the traditional western function of Indians, Noble Savages trying to fight back against a technologically superior foe. The war between the city-states of Helium and Zodanga is more like something out of "Star Trek," but with elements of the sword-and-sandals epics of the 1950s, what with the togas and the armor, the pillars and the pageantry and the ripely histrionic dialogue.

It's yours...

From the Associated Press:

The New York Police Department kept secret files on businesses owned by second- and third-generation Americans specifically because they were Muslims, according to newly obtained documents that spell out in the clearest terms yet that police were monitoring people based on religion.... 

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has defended his department's efforts, saying they have kept the city safe, were completely legal and were not based on religion. "We don't stop to think about the religion," Bloomberg said at a news conference in August after The Associated Press began revealing the spying. "We stop to think about the threats and focus our efforts there." 

In late 2007, however, plainclothes officers in the department's secretive Demographics Unit were assigned to investigate the region's Syrian population. Police photographed businesses and eavesdropped at lunch counters and inside grocery stores and pastry shops. The resulting document listed no threat. And though most people of Syrian heritage living in the area were Jewish, Jews were excluded from the monitoring. 

"This report will focus on the smaller Muslim community," the report said. Similarly, police excluded the city's sizable Coptic Christian population when photographing, monitoring and eavesdropping on Egyptian businesses in 2007, according to the police files. "This report does not represent the Coptic Egyptian community and is merely an insight into the Muslim Egyptian community of New York City," the NYPD wrote. 

Many of those under surveillance were American-born citizens whose families have been here for the better part of a century.

"You think that terrorists aren't aware of how easy it is to be characterized by ethnicity?" Kelly said. "Look at the 9/11 hijackers. They came here. They shaved. They went to topless bars. They wanted to blend in. They wanted to look like they were part of the American dream. These are not dumb people."

 Kelly went on to say, "Could a terrorist dress up as a Hasidic Jew and walk into the subway, and not be profiled? Yes. I think profiling is just nuts."

Bell was one of the chief proponents of Critical Race Theory, a radical doctrine that holds that American legal institutions--including our civil rights laws--perpetuate white supremacy. Bell's ideas were not only radical, but bizarre.

More »

The feeling of learning a new language is physical. My french class is only an hour and a half but I come out warn down, wanting to do little else but sleep on the train-ride home. 

Emily Bazelon looks at new effort to stop homophobic violence in a school district where gay kids found themselves subject to mockery, assault and being urinated upon:

At first, the school board stood by a curriculum policy passed in 2009, which on paper instructed teachers to "remain neutral" about sexual orientation and in practice operated as a gag order. Teachers were required to refrain from saying that being gay is not a choice, even if they were quoting the position of the American Psychological Association. When history teachers included gay rights in a unit about how the strategies of the black civil rights groups influenced subsequent movements, the district deleted the reference. For a staff diversity training session, the district rejected a book called How Homophobia Hurts Children because it did not "include an opposing viewpoint." 

The schools also scrubbed LBGT support services, like a gay and lesbian helpline, from the list of health resources given to students. And a conservative Christian parents' group called the Parents Action League pushed for teaching gay students about "reparative therapy"--how to root out their homosexuality--by promoting groups that treat it as a sin against the will of God. In 2010 the head of the group told the Minnesota Independent that LGBT students had killed themselves not because of bullying, but because of "homosexual indoctrination" and their own "unhealthy lifestyle." (The statewide sponsor of the Parents Action League is a group called the Minnesota Family Council; last spring, Bachmannn and Newt Gingrich were the headline speakers for an MFC fundraiser.) 

Now, after months of negotiations with the plaintiffs' lawyers and DoJ, the school district has folded. That's not what the settlement announced Tuesday said: Anoka-Hennepin admitted no wrongdoing. But a month ago, the school board scrapped the curriculum policy about sexual orientation, replacing it with a new one that affirms the "dignity and worth of all students," regardless of a host of traits including race, religion, sex/gender, and sexual orientation. The district also agreed to take steps like conducting surveys about the rate of bullying, creating an anti-bullying committee of students, parents, and teachers, and training peer leaders. Anoka-Hennepin promised to hire a coordinator to make sure all of this actually happens and a mental health consultant to review its approach to helping the targets of harassment. DoJ will monitor the schools for five years, and the district estimates it will spend about $500,000 on the measures it will take. The students who sued will split a settlement of $270,000.

"Making schools safe for 'gay' kids means indoctrinating impressionable, young minds with homosexual propaganda."

I just want to chime in and agree with my colleague David A. Graham that the latest blockbuster "get" from vaults of Andrew Brietbart is indeed, a fitting, testament to his legacy. This new and crippling information had evidently been hidden in the impassible hinterlands of PBS's website and was accessible only through the esoteric machinations of Netflix streaming video. 

Maybe you're underwhelmed by this. It's understandable! The video doesn't actually do much to prove that Obama is a dangerous radical. But it's supposed to prove that the meda ignores any connection that might make Obama look radical. That's where the "VetThePrez" hashtag comes in. The Breitbartverse will shame the media -- or at the very least, Fox -- into publishing stories it might have deemed un-newsworthy.

Usually the female parts in a superhero film feel thankless: She's the pill girlfriend while the guys are whizzing around saving the world. I didn't do the other ones because the part wasn't very good or the timing wasn't right, but I'm open to any kind of genre if the part is great and fun and different and a challenge in some way. I would love to do a comic-book movie or a science-fiction film that would scare the bejesus out of me. Maybe I need to be James Bond! I just did Looper, because it's so original and breathtakingly cool. The time-travel aspect is just a backdrop to visit this heightened world, where you're atoning for something and attempting to be more than you've been.