Notes From Post-Racist America
A bare majority of the Supreme Court appears poised to declare racism in America officially dead, or at least a problem the Congress can longer concern itself with. And of course, it helps if you define racism the Republican way (i.e. there are the persons responsible for shooting Medgar Evers,* and then there are non-racists.) Before we declare racism over, however, we may want to consider some other recent Supreme Court news:
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor today released a statement condemning a federal prosecutor’s blatant use of racism to secure a conviction in a 2011 drug case. The Court did not grant the convicted man in question an appeal, but Sotomayor nonetheless remarked that Assistant US Attorney Sam L. Pozner’s use of race as an implication of guilt was unacceptable.
When Pozner made the prejudiced remark, at issue was whether the defendant was unaware of his buddies’ drug exchange. Pozner said that because Black and Latino people were involved, he MUST HAVE known drugs were, too:
“You’ve got African-Americans, you’ve got Hispanics, you’ve got a bag full of money. Does that tell you–a light bulb doesn’t go off in your head and say, This is a drug deal?”
And, even worse, because of inept counsel the Supreme Court could not even consider the effect of the prosecutor’s racism at trial. The Sixth Amendment right to counsel is another one of those rights that is becoming less and less meaningful in the application.
*Rock could have mentioned Emmett Till, except that as one of America’s favorite conservative bloggers has explained, that had nothing to with race, and he had it coming besides.
You can probably add plagiarism to RS McCain’s list of sins re: Till, since Peter Brimelow made exactly that argument several years earlier: http://malkin-watch.blogspot.com/2005/03/who-keeps-company-with-wolves-will.html
Oh well. Back to Congress. Unless you want to skip ahead to the barricades.
I am oiling and sharpening the guillotines as I type.
Yup, pre-clearance is going down. Suck on it.
JenBob, a year ago:
Yup,
pre-clearanceObamaCare is going down. Suck on it.JenBob, six months ago:
Yup,
pre-clearanceObama is going down. Suck on it.Someday, fucking stupid cracker is gonna get something correct. Someday, a room full of monkeys will type out Hamlet.
Wow, for the first time I have some optimism that Kennedy may step back from the brink, or Scalia and Alito might get hit by a bus.
The only thing that could make me feel better is if Bill Kristol weighs in to agree with Our Sweet Jennie.
That Carbon Fella is correct!
Careful, Carbon, don’t let the White House threaten you out of speaking your mind!
I — no joke — had this exact reaction.
Rosa Parks should be driving that bus.
I know. JenBob and Bloody Billy Kristol are my two perfect reverse barometers.
Sounds like this person really wants a B.J.
I object to this characterization, as it makes Jennie seem normal. I’d be suspicious of a male who doesn’t want a BJ.
Yes, well. Wanting the giver to have tears streaming down his/her face ain’t normal.
I agree with that. I just want to be clear though, I am NOT calling for Jennie’s head on my stick.
Eh, there are lots of people of both sexes who don’t like receiving oral sex because of the way it feels. There are even het men who don’t like vaginal intercourse for the same reason. People are weird. News at 11.
Normally the line would be “film at 11″, but this is a family website.
Yes, and it’s the Borgia family.
How empty and devoid of meaning does your life have to be before you engage in this sort of petty, spiteful pre-gloating about something that doesn’t even concern you? I mean, you’d have to basically be a broken shell of a human being, desperately seeking attention from people he claims to despise and yet can’t stay away from.
Well he’s concerned with Republicans winning.
And it really helps their odds if black people can’t vote.
Also too: Trolls gotta’ troll.
Remember the story of the scorpion and the frog.
He doesn’t like pancakes, either.
Why are you flattering him like this?
I originally read this as “flatteNing.” Mention of pancakes + missing glasses.
I thought it was obvious by now that LGM’s trolls are getting paid to post here. Probably getting paid for the replies, too.
In a few days, guess what gets struck the fuck down?
Why, the Saginaw Plaza Hotel, of course.
Don’t forget — Republicans also consider anyone who complains about racism to be racist, just like the people who shot Medgar Evers.
Cool if the US is now post-racist does that mean that the inequality in the relationship between US and African institutions will come to an end? When can we expect an end to the US dominated IMF and World Bank arbitrarily raising prices here?
Shorter J Otto: Ghana, bitchez!
Oh, be fair. We all must seem to have bizarre fixations on the US to anyone living in Ghana.
What the white-males fuck are you talking about?
I don’t see those policies as racist: the western world would continue to fuck Africa even it were populated by wasps.
On what basis? A racism constructed upon geography rather than culture marked by skin color? If it is an immutable trait inherited at birth and passed on to future generations with no hope of escape from assimilation then we are still talking about race.
Oops that should be escape by assimilation.
He can raise an ineffective assistance claim for the failure to object in a 2255 motion now that he’s done with direct appeals. I doubt he’ll be able to show prejudice, but we don’t know for a fact that he’s without a remedy.
This prosecutors sin was saying explicitly what is typically only (very strongly) implied.
Without racial guilt the drug war would collapse.
Yup.
I am not sure if this is true. While much of the war on drugs is aimed at racialized minorities and this has been true since the first drug laws I do not believe that it explains everything today. In much of rural America the drug war is aimed at meth which is almost entirely a product used only by white people. I think that it would be possible to sustain a class based war on drugs against meth without any racial angle. Indeed the war on drugs in many rural areas is a war on meth and white users, producers, and manufacturers. Where is the racial angle in the war on meth? If it was only about race then meth would be legalized.
Have you looked at the incarceration rates for Caucasians Vs African-Americans Vs. other minorities for drug offenses?
http://www.naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-sheet
Meth is common in rural America because it’s easier to make something involving red phosphorus, or, in one process, hydrochloric gas(HCl in gaseous form) when you’re out in the boonies than if you’re in an apartment in a large city where people can smell the fumes and wonder what you’re up to.
How does this in anyway contradict anything I said? I said “much of the war on drugs is aimed at racialize minorities.” You seem to be arguing all of it is aimed solely at black people. Something your statistics show to be false. If your theory is that the war on drugs is today 100% only about incarcerating black people and nothing else then there should not be any white convictions at all. For your argument to be true you need zero white drug arrests and convictions. Again if it was only and solely and 100% about putting black people in prison as you seem to believe then meth would be legal. It is not.
No one said it “explained everything.” I’m saying – racial guilt is necessary to shred the civil liberties of people, both in terms of policing and prosecution. Attacks on rights always target the disadvantaged first and then move outward. Without those massive civil liberties violations, the drug war would be impossible. (Which is not to say that legalization would occur.) Further, the racial character of the drug war is necessary to legitimate it – the war is associated in our media and our politics with urban African Americans.
I also think you are confusing drug laws with the drug war. That meth is targeted for prosecution tells us nothing about how it’s targeted. Note too you slip from black-white to urban-rural as if there aren’t Black people in urban areas. If we treated meth like crack, we wouldn’t lock up sudafed, we’d search everyone who bought sudafed or had the sniffles. The Drug War isn’t about targeted drug users, sellers, etc. It’s about targeting black people. In DC, cops walk around black neighborhoods and demand to search people for no reason (“consensual”) or stop cars for BS moving violations and gin up an excuse to search the car, or blanket black neighborhoods with undercover cops. They do this so much it’s not unusual for two sets of undercover cops to buy drugs from the same dealer at the same time.
That’s the drug war.
I am willing to bet if the US had no black people what so ever, say they all emigrated to Africa to join me tomorrow and everything else was the same that there would still be a war on meth against whites in the rural areas. There are almost no white people where I live. There is still a strict prohibition on recreational drugs. It is stricter than in the US. If you ever come to Ghana look at the signs posted everywhere in the airport particularly the men’s room about the penalties for drug smuggling. The advertised sentences are considerably longer than in the US. Since all the police, prosecutors, and politicians are black the war on drugs here is obviously not racially motivated. In the US a lot of it is. But, a lot of it is also class motivated which also disproportionately effects racialized minorities. But, to pretend that it is only about white people in the US putting black people in prison is ignoring a whole lot of other things going on.
You seem to be arguing all of it is aimed solely at black people. Something your statistics show to be false.
Did I really say that? The NAACP figures demonstrate that it overwhelmingly affects African-Americans more than their white counterparts.
Then there is this
The Drug War, Minorities, and the Rust Belt:
But, to pretend that it is only about white people in the US putting black people in prison is ignoring a whole lot of other things going on.
Nope, you’re doing the fallacy of the excluded middle here.
It’s about class as well, upper-class people aren’t arrested for drugs at the rate of the middle-class and working class counterparts, I’m sure that’s as true for Ghana as it is around the world where some drugs are illegalized.
I suspect it’s all about class; race merely acting as a surrogate for class. Blacks are overrepresented among the poor, therefore more of them are involved in criminal activity of almost any kind (I bet prosecutions for tax evasion is a “war on white people”), and that’s all there is to it, more or less. That is also the main (by far) reason for what is called ‘racism’ these days: racial stereotyping, racial profiling, this sort of thing.
You’re still confusing drug laws with the drug war.
What is the difference? If you outlaw something are you not waging war on its existence?
It’s “Ponder,” not “Pozner.”
As for the commentary from Cohen, America’s Dumbest Legal Analyst™, the issue was considered by the Fifth Circuit. He couldn’t win because, despite the mistakes of his attorney, he couldn’t possibly show sufficient prejudice, given the overwhelming evidence against him. The only issue waived at the Supreme Court was that he should win without having to show prejudice — and he’d have lost on that even if it hadn’t been waived.
Well, no. They appear poise to declare that if Congress wants to address it, it needs to do so based on current facts rather than 50-year old ones. The only issue in Shelby is whether the preclearance requirement of the VRA — not the VRA as a whole — can be targeted at jurisdictions based on data Congress hasn’t bothered to look at in decades.
By the way: Obama was elected. Twice.
There is no argument too specious for you, is there?
I’ve only seen this cat in action a few times, but I don’t think argument is the word you want.
This needs to be a new boilerplate response. Will save us a lot of time coming up with things to say to Carbon Man.
My mental image of Davey McHandwavy involves him furiously ramming his glasses up the bridge of his nose every time he hits post.
The fact that your defense of the idea that post-racial America has arrived involves making a note of the president’s race strongly undermines your point.
But not in the South. Thanks for the self-refuting arguments.
Well, no. They appear poise to declare that if Congress wants to address it, it needs to do so based on current facts rather than 50-year old ones. The only issue in Shelby is whether the preclearance requirement of the VRA — not the VRA as a whole — can be targeted at jurisdictions based on data Congress hasn’t bothered to look at in decades.
Except that if you paid the slightest attention to oral argument it’s clear that there’s no way Congress could pass a preclearance requirement that the reactionary wing of the Supreme Court would consider constitutional, in part because they seem to have the bizarre idea that the primary purpose of the 15th Amendment is to protect the equality of the states rather than the equality of individual voters.
By the way: Obama was elected. Twice.
Talk about your great moments in self-refutation! In addition, I agree that this does help to explain why many Republican-controlled jurisdictions are attempting to limit the franchise.
I think David’s point is spot on.
Anyone that thinks things haven’t changed in the last 50 years hasn’t taken a look at congress, the Supreme Court or the office of the presidency not to mention academia and corporate America.
If congress deems that we need a VRA, it should be based upon current facts….and they may…and that’s OK. But base the decision on today’s needs, not yesterday’s.
If congress deems that we need a VRA, it should be based upon current facts….and they may…and that’s OK.
They did. Bush signed a renewal in 2006, good through 2031. Why do you support legislating from the bench, Jennie?
Ouch.
Another president who, like Ronald Reagan, would fail the Tea Party Purity Test.
Get with the program. Even the CATO Institute along with many other conservative think-tanks knew Bush wasn’t very conservative.
The Tea Party formed *because* of Bush and the country-club establishment Republicans……and, of course, the commies in the DSA and Democratic party.
The sad, desperate lies you guys tell yourselves about the Bush administration are the most adorable thing about you guys.
No Jenny, the stink of failure will never wash off, no matter how hard you scrub.
The Tea Party formed *because* of Bush and the country-club establishment Republicans
The funniest single thing I’ve read all week. Thanks, Dude, you just brightened a not-at-all nice day.
The tea party lunatics were around long before that; they’re just rebranded Birchers
Ignorance is Bliss….and you sure are happy about the Tea Party.
CNN puts the timeline at Nov. 2008 in protest of the Bush bailouts.
Enjoy your bliss…
And nothing else of any significance happened in November 2008 that might explain it…no, it had to be the Bush bailouts.
Shine on, you crazy maroon.
Well if an unsourced CNN slideshow says it, it must be true! There were facebook comments, and that’s like the most powerful form of political activism in the world!
My statement didn’t imply the contrary and is wholly consonant with yours, so you may want to watch the program more closely.
And see also this. Additionally, the first national large-scale protests didn’t occur until well into Obama’s first term. For some context on the coalescence, see here.
Whatever the vaunted philosophical roots of the party may be as seen from CATO, think tanks are not a movement, and aren’t even the Tea Party Express or FreedomWorks.
Why do you support legislating from the bench
Looks like that’s what KING Obama is asking SCOTUS to do with CA’s ban on homo marriage, isn’t it?
And, let’s not forget Roe v Wade. That’s a whopper!!
Speaks Truthiness says: “It’s okay when we do it, but not you bad, bad liebrals.”
You realize that what you’re expressing is butthurt, not counter-argument, right?
Butthurt is all JenBob ever has.
From the Encyclopedia Dramatica
Shorter cracker: “liberty ain’t for bitches.”
One thing that hasn’t changed is states are still trying to systematically disenfranchise black people. Under the 15th A, that’s the thing that matters. The things you listed have zero constitutional relevance. Most jurisdictions that are covered are still violating that right. And Congress did use current facts – volumes of them.
Try to keep up.
Pointing Jenny at what’s actually in the Constitution is an exercise in futility, as he has nothing but contempt for that document.
I think what the court is saying is the legislature passed a solution without a problem…
One would hope not, because that would be a titanically stupid thing to say.
And one pseudonym per thread, Jenny. It’s kind of obvious when you don’t change your voice when you change your name.
It’s not the Court’s call to make, and in additional it’s demonstrably false.
There needs to be a term for an excuse that, even if true, doesn’t support one’s cause.
It would save us all time.
Repaired your statement. You’re welcome.