The Sable Verity

“So, have you stopped to think about whether or not you’re being just a tad harsh?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, it just doesn’t seem like you’re being very objective on the website,” he said gingerly.

“Objective?” I nearly balked.  “What do you want me to be objective about?”

“Dave Ross quoted you as saying the girls are responsible for that man’s death, do you really think that is fair?”

“Ummm, yeaaaah, I do.”

“Don’t you think they’re sorry?” he asked.

“Sure they are.  Someone is dead.  I would HOPE they are sorry for that.”

“And what about him, Brian Brown?  Do you think he is a killer?”

“He is a killer.  He punched someone and he died.  He broke his nose and his jaw.  The muscles were all torn up in his face.  His skull was splattered all over the concrete.”

“But he didn’t mean to do it,” he insisted.

“Right.  He meant to talk to him and somehow tripped and punched him in the face.”

“Okay, look, all I am saying is, I’m sure there are other factors that need to be taken into considerations.”

That’s the gist of a conversation I had with a friend of mine today.

I know what he was getting at, but I didn’t necessarily want to hear it.  For lack of a less offensive term, he- and others- do not want to see a lynch mob go after Brian Brown, Ebonie Shephard or Patrina Hicks.  He doesn’t want them to be cast as subhuman, beyond hope, the lowest of the low, the scum of the earth.  I get that.

I do not think that by expressing my feelings, I am irrational, or casting anyone other than what they have shown themselves to be.

I do not think that anyone in this situation is beyond the possibility of personal change.

I understand that people made mistakes, and yes, I believe that again and again, in this situation, mistakes were made.  Mistakes that cannot be undone.

There is no reprogramming of the game to get a second life.

And, as if it weren’t already made clear by previous posts, I am fed up with this kind of behavior.  I am fed up with people underestimating what can happen when we’re reckless.  I am fed up with senseless death and violence, and this provided an opportunity to express it, not just for me, but for many people.  This provided an opportunity to draw attention to a huge problem that we have within ALL of our communities.

I am not sitting, high and mighty in “judgement” of others from my house on the hill.  I love my people, I love our children.  I want to be a supporting force, I want to be proud.  I want to hear and see good things, and good news.

No, I do not think that I have all the answers.  I don’t.  If I had a magic wand we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.  Yes, I’ve underlined personal accountability.  But where people will not hold themselves accountable, that is where the rest of a community comes in; schools, churches, elders, counselors, store owners, librarians, and so on.

And we need to engage our youth.  We need to get them in a room and hash this out.  We need to call things to the carpet.  We need to set up agreements with them, as families and communities.  We need to know what they need from us and then we need to give them those things.

We need to find out what will get them off of the street corner, what will help them make better choices, so they don’t do things like resort to violence.  We need to support their families and whatever may be going on at the home front; we need to weave an entirely new foundation, and help our children and our youth chart their direction in life, and help them stick to it.  When we can do those things, we can begin to make change.  But when?  When is it going to happen?  I don’t have the answer, but I know that we have the resources. 

Do we have the desire?  Do we have the will?

We’ve closed a chapter in this disaster; the suspect has given himself up.  I cannot say enough how outstanding I think the Seattle Medium, Chris H. Bennett, and the NAACP handled this; I commend the suspect’s friends and family for helping him to do the right thing.  I hope that he continues to do the right thing and take responsibility for what he has done.  I hope that he can use his life, to serve as a model for other young Black men, and young people in general, because, his story does not have to end here.  It can continue in many different ways…it just depends on what he decides to do with all of this.

Yes, I do still believe, based on the information available to date, that there are still arrests that need to be made.  After all, Brian Brown would have never crossed paths with James Paroline if someone else had not compelled him to; that person needs to be held accountable. 

My despair comes from the death.

My outrage comes from the circumstances, and the business left incomplete: who recruited Brian Brown?

So yes, I believe my objectivity is in tact.  I am aware that Mr. Brown is probably very scared; I am certain he is aware of all of the news coverage and all of the opinions that have been put out there about him, about his friends, and about Black people in general.

I am sure the girls feel like they too are good people, and that people don’t see the good, and that that isn’t fair to them- they didn’t mean for a man to die.

Unfortunately, the reality doesn’t end there. 

I always lecture on intention, because intention is often used as an excuse to not be held accountable for so many things.  Usually I use these lessons in racially charged situations, when someone makes a racist mistake and then tries to pawn it off on the fact that it wasn’t their “intention” to make that gaffe.

Well the lesson is really the same.  Usually I say this:

Let’s say that I am in a room, standing behind a closed door.  You come open the door to come in and give me something.  You do not know that I am behind the door, and you open it with such force that it hits me in the face, breaking my nose.  Blood gushed down my lips and chin, splattering onto my expensive silk blouse and suede shoes. 

I am crying in pain, and you are horrified by what has happened.

Did you intend to break my nose?  Of course not.  Is it broken?  Yeah.  Are you going to try and tell me that I don’t need to go to the doctor, or cry from pain, because you didn’t mean to do it, you only intended to bring me something?  Not likely.

Hopefully you would say that you’re sorry, and get me some ice.

It’s the same situation here.  You meant to hurt the man, but not kill him.  But you did.  You meant to go and get someone to help you, but instead they made it worse.

That is the reality we are faced with.  We are not faced with the intended act, we’re faced with the act.

Intention is like potential; neither of them is in the present.  If I am focused on intention, I am not focused on reality.  If I am focused on a person’s potential, I am not necessarily focused on who they are in this moment.

The issue is complex, and I can see that.  I spend hours at a time thinking and writing about it, answering emails and calls, responding to messages and comments.

I am also clear that we should not lose sight of the victim.  His name is James “Jage” Paroline.  He was a gentle man who loved the flowers in his yard (and it sounds like everyone else’s too!) and enjoyed tending to the traffic circle. 

That man is no longer here.  I’ll not have the change to see his smile or shake his hand.  I am sorrowful, deeply sorrowful for his horrific, tragic death, and it is in his memory, not just in the adjacent issues, that I’ve covered this issue and the perils facing “the Beach”.

Peace-

Sable Verity

— Scott Jaschik

On bad days, there are no doubt plenty of professors who have joked about suing students. But it is pretty rare that somebody actually does so. A law professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock has — and the ramifications could extend well beyond his dispute.

Richard J. Peltz is suing two students who are involved in the university’s chapter of the Black Law Student Association, the association itself, and another individual who is affiliated with a black lawyers’ group. Peltz charges them with defamation, saying that his comments about affirmative action were used unfairly to accuse him of racism in a way that tarnished his reputation.

Suing students for what they have said about you is rare if not unheard of, but the topic has suddenly come up not only at Little Rock’s law school, but at Dartmouth College. There, a former instructor recently sent several former students e-mail indicating that she was planning a suit. Robert B. Donin, general counsel of the college, issued a statement in which he said: “We have determined that there is no basis for such action, and we have advised the students and faculty members of this.”

Since the suit that has been filed in Arkansas has been reported by The Arkansas Democrat Gazette, students and faculty there have considered the ramifications — but mostly among themselves. There is considerable concern at the university — and some elsewhere — about what it means to open exchange of ideas to have a professor sue his students.

The dispute over Peltz concerns his opposition to affirmative action — and how he expressed it. Complicating matters is that no one who was present when the statements were actually made is discussing them. Those Peltz sued did not respond to messages, and he was willing to e-mail only a very general discussion of what happened. In examples of the defamatory material that were submitted with his suit, however, the view of the black student organization about his actions becomes clear.

In a memo sent to Charles Goldner, dean of the law school, the students accuse Peltz of engaging in a “rant” about affirmative action, of saying that affirmative action helps “unqualified black people,” of displaying a satirical article from The Onion about the death of Rosa Parks, of allowing a student to give “incorrect facts” about a key affirmative action case, of passing out a form on which he asked for students’ name and race and linking this form to grades, and of denigrating black students in a debate about affirmative action, among other charges.

The student memo said that the organization had “no problem with the difference of opinion about affirmative action,” but that Peltz’s actions were “hateful and inciting speech” and were used “to attack and demean the black students in class.”

The black student group demanded that Peltz be “openly reprimanded,” that he be barred from teaching constitutional law “or any other required course where black students would be forced to have him as a professor,” that the university mention in his personnel file that he is unable “to deal fairly with black students,” and that he be required to attend diversity training.

While Peltz in an e-mail said he could not discuss the case in detail, he suggested — as have his supporters — that the accusations that he was unfair to black students were a misrepresentation of his criticism of affirmative action. For example, he said that he was invited by the Black Law Students Association to debate affirmative action and to take the anti- position.

And while not relating this action directly to what is described in the suit, he wrote the following by e-mail about what may be the form asking for students’ race. “Unrelated to the debate and in the ordinary course of my Constitutional Law class in the fall of 2005, I taught the usual and scheduled material on affirmative action. To stimulate discussion, I presented students with an exercise by handing out a adapted version of the form that the Arkansas state government uses to hire personnel. All students were offered credit to participate. Responding to skeptical student questions, I argued in favor of affirmative action. My teaching method spurred a productive class discussion.”

After Peltz filed the suit, he was removed from teaching all required courses — a fact that the university confirmed but declined to explain, saying that it related both to personnel issues and litigation. Goldner, the dean, sent students and professors an e-mail in which he said that “we recognize that an individual is within his or her rights to file claims in our courts. We also take seriously our obligation to provide our students the environment they need in order to receive the best possible education. Part of that obligation includes working to be an institution in which all members — faculty, students, and staff — are free to openly voice opinions and concerns.”

Goldner pledged to continue to work to create a “diverse and inclusive community.”

Jonathan Knight, who handles academic freedom and governance issues for the American Association of University Professors, said he was concerned about the suit — regardless of whether Peltz was unfairly maligned by his students. “A suit like this, as I’m sure the professor knows, can have troubling implications for academic freedom,” Knight said. “When you ask a court to become involved in making judgments about the metes and bounds of free expression on campus, it can be dangerous.” He noted, for example, that legal standards about the free exchange of ideas — some of them unpleasant — “are not co-equal with the standards of the academic community.”

Generally, Knight said that the worries about courts settling such matters are such that professors need to be “thickly armored” when it comes to comments from colleagues or students. If a professor is being unfairly criticized, it is far better for fellow faculty members or a dean to come to his or her defense than for the scholar to go to court, Knight said.

Noting that professors “typically do not restrain themselves” when talking about other professors’ research, Knight said that “when one enters the academic community, it’s with the understanding that lots of things might well be said which cast one in a very unpleasant light.”

Passing this on from the Legal Theory Blog:

Here is the abstract:

Scholars describe the one-drop rule - the idea that any African ancestry makes a person black - as the American regime of race. While accounts of when the rule emerged vary widely, ranging from the 1660s to the 1920s, most legal scholars have assumed that once established, the rule created a bright line that people were bound to follow. This Article reconstructs the one-drop rule’s meaning and purpose from 1600 to 1860, setting it within the context of racial migration, the continual process by which people of African descent assimilated into white communities. Read more »

Originally posted April 27, 2008

Emotional students described a culture of racial intolerance and misunderstanding at Sonoma State University in a town hall meeting Monday that followed a campus election marred by racist graffiti.
“It’s intimidating,” said Christina Albert, a black student. “You’re singled out when you’re the only one in the class. The teacher looks at you when you’re learning about slavery or crime rates.”

Read more »

A friend of mine suggested I write a piece on a common excuse White people use when in the midst of a racial or racist mistake; intentions.

For both Black and White people, some of these might sound familiar. Read more »

Originally posted April 14, 2008

By TIM WISE

For most white folks, indignation just doesn’t wear well. Once affected or conjured up, it reminds one of a pudgy man, wearing a tie that may well have fit him when he was fifty pounds lighter, but which now cuts off somewhere above his navel and makes him look like an idiot. Read more »