The rage of the privileged class

Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates was arrested in his home this week after police responded to a call about a man breaking into a house. That man breaking into a home was Gates breaking into his own house. This incident has led to an outcry from many about racial profiling by police.

The thing is I do not believe this incident adequately represents racial profiling. The officer approached Gates not because of his race, but because of a specific report of someone breaking into a house. This we cannot fault the officer for.

Gates identified himself and produced evidence that he was in his own home, the problems started after this. Apparently Gates got belligerent with the officer which then led to the officer arresting him for disorderly conduct. The complaint is that the officer would not have arrested Gates had he been a white man getting belligerent with him. There is a certain deference that is expected from black men that is not expected from white men--this I do believe.

An unasked question, however, is would Gates have reacted the way that he did if the officer had been black? Certainly both parties brought racial "baggage" to the encounter, which contributed to the unfortunate escalation and then the ridiculous arrest. I am very clear that I react differently to white folks than I do black folks. In fact a white and black person can have the same position on an issue and it is completely possible that I will interpret their positions differently. It is possible that Gates could have fallen into the same sort of behavior.

I have not been as animated as others about this incident because I do not believe it really goes to the issue of racial profiling, which is quite real. My fear is that the Gates arrest will become more about Skip Gates and his status as a Harvard Professor who went through this, than the issue itself.

Black Boy, Part II

The next day on my way back from a walk at the track near our house, my wifecalled to tell me one of the lawn cutting boys was knocking at the front door.

"The guy from last night?"

"No, the other one."

"Don't answer the door, I'm on my way back now."

By the time I got home the boy was gone, she confirmed it was the other boy from the lawn cutting duo, the one who did all the talking. I waited around for about ten minutes to see if he would come back then left to go get some "ghetto fish," from Horace and Dickeys.

I cut through the alley down the street looking down the back alley I saw the boy and two others on bikes at the back of our house.

"Mr. Clare, Mr. Clare, when you want me to come cut the grass again,” shouted, pedaling toward me. Of the things I prepared myself for this was not one of them. Before I could say anything he spoke up again. "It really don't need it yet, it's kinda short."

Listening to him talk reminded me of the obvious--this was a little boy. His voice, high pitched, almost cartoon like came with a smile bright with eagerness.

"How about on Friday?" was all I could think to say.

"What time? I get out of Summer School at 12:30. I could come between one and six."

“What are you the phone company, come at two o’clock.”

There were two conflicting things at play with inviting him back to cut the grass. One was that I was potentially inviting back one of the boys involved in stealing the bike and allowing him the opportunity to plan more mischief at my families expense. The other was that he was not involved with the incident at all and by cutting him off I was doing the whole guilt by association thing. Of course I decided to put on my “save a kid” jersey and see what I could see.

The boy showed up a little after two on Friday ready to cut the grass. Before he got started we sat on my front steps and I asked him if he knew anything about the robbery. He said no, but looked away and then down at the ground. I asked him if his friend was involved. He said he didn’t know anything about that.

We continued to sit quietly for a little, the air felt damp and I knew was coming.

“I’m going to let you cut the grass because I want to support a young man trying to make honest money, but I don’t want to see your friend again.”

“Ok,” he sat a little while longer then got up to get started.

When he was finished we sat on the deck in back, under the canopy as the rain started to fall. I told him there was one other thing I wanted him to do before he got paid. He was quiet surprised when I broke out a chess set and started setting up the pieces.

He learned the game very quickly and we spent about 40 minutes playing. Whenever I complimented him on a move, or he got something right, that big smile would take over his face.

While we played we talked, well, I asked questions and he answered. Turns out he is going into the 9th grade at Spingarn High School. I tried not to cringe when he shared that, Spingarn is one of the worst high schools in the city, and asked him if he had looked at other schools, which he had not. When I offered to show him a couple other schools he replied, “I don’t want to go nowhere.” So I left it alone for the time being.

The rain let up as we finished the last game and I enjoyed that clean, after rain smell. I paid him then we walked around the side of the house where all the commotion had taken place a few night before. The last question I asked him was what he wanted to be when he grew up.

He put his hands on the lawnmower, paused a bit, then said, “I just want to have a regular life.”

When you hear something you really don’t expect, it takes a couple seconds to respond while your brain processes what you just heard. In those few seconds I got a clear picture of the life he did not want and a clear picture of the life he did want and most of all it was clear he understood the difference between the two.

“Come see me again.”

With drama, sometimes comes opportunity.

Black Boy, Part I

Our lawnmower got stolen a couple weeks ago, which is a problem since we live in the sort of neighborhood where if you don't cut your lawn regularly, your neighbors look at you funny as you walk from your car into the house. So I was relieved when two young boys (about 13 years old) stopped by and offered to cut the lawn at a reasonable rate. They did a good job and I tipped them happily, pleased to support young boys making honest wages. We made arrangements for them to come back in a week and I exchanged phone numbers with the boy who acted as the lead.

Three days later, my wife and I are sitting in the living room, reading at about 9pm, when we hear a bunch of voices in distress running at the side of our house. About five minutes after that, Jean, our neighbor from across the street, rings the bell and informs us that some young boys were in our yard. I go out back to check things out and when I get back to the front yard, Jean and my wife are chatting.

My wife updates me on their conversation and said that Ted, Jean's husband, had seen the boys walk through our front gate and head into the back yard and he had followed them and apparently scared them off. The boys hopped the back fence and ran off, leaving a pair of bolt cutters in their wake.

Although our neighborhood is quiet, tree lined and thoroughly middle class it sits right next to a neighborhood that is decidedly the opposite. Twenty blocks from where we live is a large public housing development, not one that has been redeveloped, but one of the old school, no grass, young men standing around with no shirt, teenage girls pushing baby strollers.

After joining in on the conversation I asked Jean where Ted was. "Oh he went after the boys." This had not finished registering on me when I saw three boys half a block away run through an alley across our street and continue on through the alley followed closely by Ted, his arms pumping after them.

Jean's response was a nonchalant, "there he goes," my wife issued, what in the legal profession is called and excited utterance, shouting, "What the fuck!" With mixed emotions I walked down the street toward the alley, with no desire to catch up with Ted. When I got to the alley, Ted was leading one of the boys back in a half nelson. The boy was all protest, shouting that he was no thief, he was simply on his way to his cousin, that he wanted to call his mother. I looked at Ted wondering how long had he been Batman.

He walked the boy back to the front of my house, my wife called the police and as is traditional in our neighborhood, whenever there is any excitement folks come out their houses to see what is going on. Ted had the boy sit on the ground between us while he continued to proclaim his innocence and make his case. Ted informed him that we had his hand print.

"On the bike?" the boy asked nervously.

Ted meant the bolt cutters, but the boy mentioning the bike reminded me that we had three bicycles chained up in the stairwell leading to the basement in the back of the house. So now everything became clear, the bolt cutters were to cut the chains off the bikes. The boy was getting more and more anxious and asked my wife for a phone so he could call his mother. I, frankly was concerned that his associates would retaliate against us in some way for getting their friend arrested.

I started talking to the boy, asking him which school he went to, what did he want to be when he grew up (football player and if that didn't work out, basketball player) when it occurred to me that this boy was one of the two boys who cut my lawn. But then I was not sure. I had dealt with just one of them who negotiated the price, who did the walk through with me after they finished cutting the lawn and who seemed like he was in charge of the enterprise. It made sense, while they were cutting the back yard they saw the bikes and alerted their friends to the possible booty.

The police arrived, took statements from Ted, Jean, my wife and I; interviewed the boy and informed us that they did not have enough to charge him. My wife being a criminal defense attorney was not surprised, but Ted was disappointed, after all he spent about twenty minutes running after kids not even a third his age. The police put the boy in their squad care and assured us they would give him a harsh talking to and take him home.

Folks started drifting back into their houses leaving Ted, Jean my wife and I standing outside our house. It was at this point I took the opportunity to tell Ted that he was crazy to run after them. He readily agreed. We ended up inviting them over for dinner on Sunday and made our way back inside.

"Well," my wife said, "we should get an alarm system." Re-starting a conversation that we had been having for about a year.

"Yeah," I replied, "I don't think this is over."

What Sotomayor Cannot Say

The essential problem of the Sotomayor hearings is that it is being played out on the mythological stage that defines American politics and law. The particular myths at play are: Justice is blind; all Judges do is “apply the law.”

If all Judges did is apply the law, then why aren’t all Supreme Court decisions unanimous? If all Judges did is apply the law, then why do we need more than one Supreme Court Justice?

In a 5-4 Supreme Court decision is the dissent not applying the law or the majority? How can we tell. Why should the standard be who has the most votes? The myth is that the application of the law is a function that can be separated from who you are.

Sotomayor burden is that she confronted this myth with her “wise latina,” 2001 Berkley speech. The underpinning of her comment was a quote from Professor Martha Minnow of Harvard Law School, who states “there is no objective stance but only a series of perspectives - no neutrality, no escape from choice in judging,” Sotomayor then said that she, “…further accept that our experiences as women and people of color affect our decisions. The aspiration to impartiality is just that--it's an aspiration because it denies the fact that we are by our experiences making different choices than others.”

There is no essential view point; everyone has experiences and views that inform their perspective on events. I feel quite comfortable in saying that if there were a majority of black people on the Supreme Court at the time of Plessy v. Ferguson there would have been no separate but equal doctrine. I also feel quite comfortable saying that if women were the majority at the constitutional convention, women would not have had to wait for the vote till 1922 and that the presence of Native Americans would have changed the outcome.

Identity politics, i.e. perspectives other than that of white males, is anathema in politics. As Eugene Robinson points out, “Being white and male is seen instead as a neutral condition, the natural order of things. Any "identity" -- black, brown, female, gay, whatever -- has to be judged against this supposedly "objective" standard.”

That white men have absolutely dominated the courts and the legislature of this country for the vast majority of our history has had a profound affect on the laws we have.

What Sotomayor cannot say now, but has said in the past is that Justice is served by having a diverse Judiciary. I certainly see parenting differently now that I’m a parent than before. I see and understand marriage differently after being married.

The simple truth is that everyone wants certain outcomes: Law enforcement wants rulings that reinforce and enhance their ability to go after lawbreakers; insurance companies and doctors want decisions that limit their liability; landlords want rulings that make it easier from them to evict tenants and tenants want rulings that make it harder; business owners want less, not more regulation.

What Sotomayer cannot say now is that her “wise latina,” remark was intended to inspire a women and minorities and let them know that their view point is as legitimate if not better as any white mans and that if anything is essential to decision making, it is diversity.

Of Discipline and Routine

Master Po is right, the purpose of discipline is to life more fully. Or to paraphrase the Dalai Lama, the key to enlightenment is routine. Routine and discipline by themselves, however, is not the answer. One must have an understanding of what their bliss is and then apply routine and discipline to the pursuit of their bliss.

Religion is, or should be a practice, it should inform how you behave. The disciplined pursuit of one's bliss is a personal religion that needs markers, ceremonies and reminders to keep you on "the straight and narrow."

Some of my daily markers are: Five minutes of silence every day, exercise, spending and time creating what I want in my mind. I've come to realize, however, that there is a need for more discipline in my bliss journey. It bring me to the question, 'what is religion.?

The purpose of discipline

The Utility of Marriage

Intrepidblackwoman and I host a Salon at our house once a month. The last topic was entitled, "The Utility of Marriage," and led to great discussion. We followed up the discussion with an email to the folks that were not able to participate, but wanted to know about the day.

Hello all:
Quite a few folks who did not make the utility of marriage salon have asked for details about the discussion, so we are going to try to oblige.

There were some broad themes that ran through the day:

For those gathered that day, the narrative of marriage - i.e. romantic, love-driven marriage - is not what is going on. There was a recognition that a large part of marriage is a business and its utility is as a vehicle for organizing property, managing children and ordering one's life. Inasmuch, exchanging credit reports and medical records before marriage makes sense.

A majority of us thought that nationally the part of the marriage narrative that assumes a man and a woman is coming to an end. As one of us put it, the actuarial tables will take care of the pitchfork wavers who oppose same sex marriages. This fight for equality and dignity is be no means over, but most of us felt that the ball is rolling down hill—same sex marriages are legal in 4 states!
The thing that sticks in our minds the most is a statistic that one of the participants shared, that marriage men are three times less likely to commit murder. This sobering statistic was followed this up by someone else sharing that championship basketball teams have more married men on them. I did a little research and found that married men live longer, are healthier, visit the doctor more, and make more money. So the utility of marriage for men is clear---CIVILIZATION.

After the Salon, I got an email of a terribly interesting website that goes into the various sort of marriages that are recognized by the Bible. There was also a Catholic marriage rite for two men

Lastly on this topic, there are studies that suggest that married people (at least loving couples/people) are connected on a subatomic level. The utility of this is that your partner can help heal you with their thoughts. This we believe to be true.