September 25, 2006
The large abuses of tiny courts ::
legal — tagged crime, due process, legal, new york and social conscience
7:56 am
The New York Times has an interesting piece on the small, rather unceremonious courts of limited jurisdiction in New York State and the types of abuses that go on there. Since these courts lack the high profile of general jurisdiction courts and often have people substantially less qualified presiding over them, they do not get the same level of attention as the Supreme Court of New York. The article, noting first that “[n]early three-quarters of the judges are not lawyers…have scant grasp of the most basic legal principles, [and] never got through high school,” goes on to explain why the underqualified nature of these judges is such a Big Deal:
But serious things happen in these little rooms all over New York State. People have been sent to jail without a guilty plea or a trial, or tossed from their homes without a proper proceeding. In violation of the law, defendants have been refused lawyers, or sentenced to weeks in jail because they cannot pay a fine. Frightened women have been denied protection from abuse.
Given the lack of attention that these courts garner (who really cares how your challenge to that traffic ticket was resolved?) what springs to mind for me is the dialogue between Holmes and Watson in The Adventure of the Copper Beeches, in which Holmes notes that it is places isolated from greater society and hidden from public scrutiny that are ripest for abuses and crime:
But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser.
September 15, 2006
Slate on that weird 9/11 photo ::
photos — tagged photos, social conscience and weird
10:00 am
Slate has an article written by the photographer who took that creepy photograph of young hipsters who appeared to be relaxing on the Brooklyn waterfront on 9/11 (the photo is included in the story). The photographer’s commentary particularly piqued my interest:
Four and a half years later, when I was going through my archive to assemble a retrospective exhibition of my work from more than 50 years, the color slide from Brooklyn suddenly seemed to jump at me. Now, distanced from the actual event, the picture seemed strange and surreal. It asked questions but provided no answers.
For me, the photo screamed cynicism, to a degree that was nearly unbearable. The photographer noted that as well. But at the end of it all, we really don’t know at all what was going on—the appearance of not caring could simply be an illusion. Ultimately, I think the photograph reveals one of the great shortcomings of visual media, rather than of people roughly my age.
February 28, 2006
Civil Rights and Liberalism ::
books — tagged books, civil rights, legal and social conscience
10:41 am
To me, the best book reviews are the ones that use a book as a starting-off point for a larger discussion about one of the book’s central themes. A truly great review is one that actually adds something to the book, which I wouldn’t have picked up on had I just read the book on its own. Interestingly, those reviews actually stand on their own, and are worth reading in their own right, even if I never pick up the book being discussed. Now, I don’t know if it’s an example of a great review, but yesterday I read this article on At Canaan’s Edge, Taylor Branch’s last installment of his three-part civil rights history, America During the King Years. What caught my eye about the review was how Benjamin Wallace-Wells ties the end of the King era to the problems facing Liberalism today:
King was just as right when he preached against the problems of the black slum or the repressive working conditions visited upon trash collectors as he was when he summoned a great moral awakening to confront the white Southern forces that kept blacks from voting. But the conflict between evil and good was not nearly so evident. Reading about King’s frustrated efforts, you can see where it’s headed. In hindsight, we anticipate the liberal politics that will mobilize behind the failed assumption that the country will invest in the condition of women or workers or the environment with the same moral vigor that led to the successes of King’s civil rights movements.
From my pespective, it is a rare social leader who is able to conjure up the same moral force that King was able to. Especially during this small slice of history in which I find myself. Indeed, in these times Liberals do in fact find themselves in a tough position, because they are at the same time so sure about the rightness of their position, yet have a hard time making that sense of rightness palpable to those who might not otherwise agree with them.
January 17, 2006
John Lewis ::
narrative — tagged civil rights, narrative, politics and social conscience
10:40 pm
As a part of this year’s Martin Luther King Day celebration, my law school hosted an event with Congressman John Lewis (here’s a reasonable press release on my school’s site). His presentation was pretty excellent—combining a personal narrative about growing up poor in rural Alabama with his experiences in the civil rights movement in Selma and his current work as a Congressman. Throughout the speech was the constant theme of constant struggle—working for a just and fair society is not something that can be completed in a day or in a week, but rather is something we must commit our entire lives to.
I left feeling I was ready to do more work.
January 16, 2006
MLK and the Voting Rights Act ::
legal — tagged civil rights, legal, political and social conscience
10:29 am
One of my favorite classes in law school has been a seminar on Civil Rights History, which I took last semester. For that class, I wrote a medium-long paper on the ways in which state and local governments attempted to circumvent the requirements of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It was a fun paper to research, and in the end, though I did find that there continuned to be some problems with voting disparities that persisted after the Act’s passage, by and large the Act was quite effective at ending the grave disparities in voter registration in what were traditionally the most segregated states in the country.
I’m noting the VRA today because of the close relationship between the VRA and the efforts of the Civil Rights Movement. Martin Luther King understood that the right to vote was directly connected to the enfranchisement of African Americans in the American society, and until President Johnson signed the VRA in 1965 it was the main focus of his career. King’s efforts—as well as those of the larger movement—culminated in the march from Selma to Montgomery. But on their first attempt to march from Selma to Montgomery, the marchers were beaten by a group of Alabama State Troopers in a conflict dubbed “Bloody Sunday.” Within months after the marchers successfully completed the march, the Voting Rights Act was signed and the imbalance of democratic power in this country changed substantially.
Today, from what I have seen much of the struggle for equality and justice in American Society has shifted to other issues, including economic disparities and racial bias in the criminal justice system. And while there is much work to be done, the effectiveness of the Voting Rights Act in ending a major form of racism in American society continues to amaze me. And were it not for Martin Luther King’s work, it’s hard to tell whether American society would have decided that such a law was necessary.
July 7, 2005
London ::
social conscience — tagged london, politics, social conscience and terrorism
11:35 am
I’ve been following the London bombings as close as possible over the past couple of hours. It’s scary to read about the various accounts of this morning, as it recalls many of the raw emotions that we all remember from September 11, 2001.
I’m sure I’ll have something more to say as the story unfolds. In the meantime, some worthwhile reading includes the Wikipedia page on the events of today (I’ve never seen a Wikipedia article grow so rapidly), this NY Times article, in which the narrator actually inserts himself into the story, and this post on Boing Boing, which provides a comprehensive set of links to blogs and Flickr pictures that cover the event.
And with all that, I concur with the Bull Moose that we are all Brits now.
