Just thinkin about it, Obama-Clinton is going down a lot like Calzhage-Hopkins, including the arguments each “fighter” is gonna make to the judges. Just like Hopkins had the more forceful punches, Hillary’s gonna claim that she’ll do better in the big states. On the other hand, Obama will have more wins - more rounds, with a greater margin of victory in the rounds he won. The only question is what style the judges are gonna ride for. I’m thinking Obama-Clinton is gonna end in a split decision, too. Right now, I’m suspecting it’s gonna break for Clinton, though. Nothing solid, just a hunch.

Whether I vote or not, I’ma tell you the truth: the 2008 election is WAY more interesting than 2004.

John Mark Reynolds has an extremely interesting post on politics vis a vis profanity. In it, he surmises:

To paraphrase Senator Edwards, there are two Americas. There is the America where calling your opponent a (insert profanity here) freak is normal and the Other Places where it is not. Vulgar America is a place where blasphemy, the real kind, is still considered “daring” and the only offense would be feeling offended by it. There are Other Places where using the Lord’s name in vain is still considered rude.

If you live mostly in one place, then the other seems weird to you. In the Other Places, a lady or gentleman might swear (though with apologies later) when very angry. The “frankly Scarlet” line of attack is tolerated, if not encouraged in extreme circumstances.

While Reynolds’ piece is primarily focused on the political ramifications of this cultural split, I’m more interested in the sociological implications. He notes,

Senator Obama is best understood as coming out of the blend of government and academic conferences and non-profits that often views itself as the best part of the nation. He “gets” that world . . . including the new rules of Vulgar America. As a result, the harsh words of Jeremiah Wright (”d- America”) do not sound so harsh to him and opposition to them must be all about race.

He repudiates some of the “ideas” of Reverend Wright, in good academic fashion with no clarity about which ideas he rejects. Even most Democrat primary voters don’t see how alienating these words are, because at least a big plurality of them live and work in Vulgar America.

Divorcing it from the explicitly political, I’d hafta say that I’m from Vulgar America. Not saying that I grew up with a bunch of people who cuss like sailors (I’ve heard that my mother cussed once, but I’ve never actually heard her cuss.), but the groups that he cites as being the constituents of Vulgar America have tended to be the circles I’ve traveled in my adult life. But then, I think there’s a degree to which he oversimplifies the differences in Vulgar America and Other America. Specifically, I think there are people in Other America who do (or would, if they heard the entire sermon) understand where Reverend Wright, for instance, is coming from, even if they disagree with it. In other words, I don’t know that the rhetorical devices of Vulgar America, for lack of a better term (pun intended), are as much of a disconnect as he supposes. While I am certain that there are people who shut off completely when they hear “vulgar” phrasing, my general impression is that cussing is not as off-putting as Reynolds would have us believe. But then, I probably wouldn’t know because I live in Vulgar America.

But thinking about it a little more, and perhaps from a dramatically different angle, I’m curious about how Black “Vulgar America” is. Now what I’m not suggesting is that all Black folks cuss regularly, or even abide cussing in their presence, because ultimately his point is not about the specific vocabulary of vulgarity. While Reynolds is careful to make academia the central locus of Vulgar America, thereby allowing it to influence pundits on both the left and right, the way he describes Other America …They will tolerate a dismissive McCain vulgarity in [terrorist fascism’s] direction, but they don’t want to hear their sacred things (God, duty, honor, country) dismissed that way. For some reason, that line fills me with a very specific image of what Other America looks like, and the picture I see looks a lot like the crowd at a tractor pull, a NASCAR event, or at Graceland. Now, this may not at all be Reynolds’ intent, but that’s kinda what I’m seeing. I see superimposed flags and crosses. I see people with a “love it or leave it” mentality, which is not where most of the Black folks I know come from, regardless of their political bent. See, most of the Black folks I’ve known in my life (which means the overwhelming majority of the people I’ve known in my life), Democratic, Republican, Independent, and other, have no problems understanding that loving America, or being proud of it, is not the same as uncritical acceptance of everything that goes on here. In fact, if I’m honest about it, the only Black folks I’ve ever “known” who have intimated otherwise are ones I “know” only via their writing. (And for real, I personally believe that the timbre of their arguments is amped up a bit to elicit reactions. My guess is that if I actually knew those people, the ideas I’d hear expressed would be quite a bit more nuanced.) And again, I’m not saying that the “God, honor, duty, country” set can’t include any Black people, but my guess is that if it does, there aren’t a whole, whole lot of us in there. Not if those are the main criteria.

To take it a little further afield, I think that the designation of “vulgar” is very much class-based. I mean, if you do the etymology, there’s no question that certain words got acceptance by “cultured” folk because those were the words the “cultured” folks used. I mean, for real - the word “vulgar” itself is rooted in the idea that “there’s a lower class and we ain’t it.” Now for much of American history, the “we ain’t it” class has been Us. Commensurate with that, many of our cultural products have been regarded as “vulgar” (at least at their inception), even when they reflected high artistry. (Hello, Jazz, et al) Hence, while I’m fairly sure that Reynolds’ by no means intended to automatically include Black folks in Vulgar America, I wonder if his description of Other America inadvertently excludes us.

But then at the same time, I’m also thinking that what he says about Other America, “they don’t want to hear their sacred things dismissed…” is true of any group, even Vulgar America. The only line of demarcation between the Other America he describes and another Other America is what constitutes the “scared things.” Cuz my guess is that for even people who cuss all the time, there are certain people/things/ideas/institutions for which certain words are always inappropriate. But that’s just me guessin’. I probably don’t know, because it’s pretty much a lock that I don’t live in Reynolds’ Other America.

As is typical around this time of year, particularly since this is a deca-anniversary of his assassination, we are hearing a lot about the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. For the most part, depending on the political bent of the author, the commentary focuses on the degree to which we have or have not achieved his dream. But the question of whether we’ve made it is a deceptive one, because even though “I Have A Dream” was possibly his best speech, and certainly his most famous one, I don’t think that his dream was static enough to really measure. Moreover, by the time he got to “I Have Been To The Mountaintop,” I would say that his dream had changed somewhat. No longer was he focused primarily on Civil Rights; his view had expanded. He had begun to look at poverty in a far wider scope, including international poverty in his critiques.

What’s a little more interesting to me, though, is to consider the fact that 40 years after his death, King has pretty much become all things to all people. Among capital-C Conservatives, there is this intense focus on the line, “I have a dream that one day my four children will be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” (I’ve actually seen one blog that claims King as a conservative. (!)) For those people, I’m curious about how they deal with the rest of what King had to say. Taking that line in isolation sounds nice, and it seems like it would refute the concept of “identity politics,” only in many instances, it seems that that quote is used solely to justify some type of inaction; either something shouldn’t be done, or it should be stopped. (Mr. Connerly, I’m lookin at you.) Only problem is, that takes the quote squarely out of its context. It seems to me that many of the people who use that quote now do so because they feel that people with their skin color are being held back, not out of concern for the content of anybody’s character. Or maybe I should say that being selfish creatures, we tend to automatically give ourselves a check in the ‘character’ box, so when we think somebody else got what we wanted, it must be due to something else. Only thing is, these jokers railing against Affirmative Action must be out of their minds if they think the situation in which they’re using Dr. King’s phrase is identical to, nearly the same as, or even mildly resembles the situation in the South in the early 1960s. As such, attempts to reuse that phrase are misguided at best, intellectually dishonest at worst.

Now that’s not to say that I don’t think that a “raceless” society is not an admirable goal, because it is. I just don’t think that the ones who made it that way can change it, because they’re not the ones who really feel the effect of what happened. In a way, it’s like a relationship where one partner cheated. Even though the cheating party brought the 3rd party into the relationship, it’s the one who got cheated on who ultimately lets that person out of the relationship, even if the 3rd party has been physically absent for a good deal of time. White folks writ large cannot make a case for a raceless society because white folks writ large both engineered and benefited from keeping the society race-based. Because of that, it’s not hard to believe that most “colorblind” talk on their part is a means to keep the status quo, since we know that even with the advances Black folks have made, there’s still a significant disparity in the way folks are treated. And no, I’m not talkin about no multivariable super-statistic, like wealth creation or infant mortality, which can be explained by any of a number of factors. I’m talkin about fairly straightforward stuff like whether a person with an identifiably Black name’s resume gets rejected when the resume of a white-sounding name (which I probably have) gets a call. I’m talkin about the fact that a first-time Black offender is more likely to get time for the same crime than a white offender. That’s straight-up one-to-one comparison. When you can tell me those types of vestiges of racism are gone, or at least statistically insignificant, then it’s time to declare race as a factor completely dead. Until then, while I personally believe it’s not as much of a factor as it once was, I can’t be mad when I hear somebody who thinks differently.

Still thinking about the incarceration issue, a new study has Philly with the highest rate of incarceration in jails in the country.

Philadelphia has the highest rate of incarceration in jails in the country, according to a new study from the Justice Policy Institute.

In Philadelphia county, 602 people were in jail for every 100,000 in 2006, according to “Jailing Communities: The Impact of Jail Expansion and Effective Public Safety,” a study by the institute, a Washington, D.C., criminal-justice think tank. That’s up from 369 per 100,000 in 1996, the study says.

Two Tennessee counties followed Philadelphia: Davidson (includes Nashville), with 596 per 100,000, and Shelby (includes Memphis), with 594.

Rising jail populations have resulted in huge bills for local municipalities across the country.

More than $19 billion was spent on jails nationally in 2004.

“I do think that since the 1970s we’ve definitely had an increased desire to punish,” said study co-author Amanda Petteruti.

The study looks specifically at the number detained in jails, locally run facilities that traditionally hold people with short sentences or people awaiting trial who were either denied bail or could not post it. Prisons are typically reserved for longer sentences.

Thinkin’ back a couple days, what I think this highlights is the need for some type of alternative sentencing options for nonviolent offenders. Especially in the case of the less-potent drugs like marijuana. While the argument for keeping weed illegal while alcohol is legal is specious to me, the law is the law. But that don’t mean we should be wasting good money going after jokers who wanna puff a little herb. The only problem is, te way we’ve been goin politically for the last couple decades is always “tough on crime.” But now, being tough on crime is startin to be tough on our wallets.

Mike Huckabee on Rev. Wright’s controversial comments:

And one other thing I think we’ve gotta remember. As easy as it is for those of us who are white, to look back and say “That’s a terrible statement!”…I grew up in a very segregated south. And I think that you have to cut some slack — and I’m gonna be probably the only Conservative in America who’s gonna say something like this, but I’m just tellin’ you — we’ve gotta cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told “you have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie. You have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant. And you can’t sit out there with everyone else. There’s a separate waiting room in the doctor’s office. Here’s where you sit on the bus…” And you know what? Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment. And you have to just say, I probably would too. I probably would too. In fact, I may have had more of a chip on my shoulder had it been me.

He gets it. While I may have my theological and philosophical beefs with liberation theology and some of its logical progeny, I know that in most cases, it ain’t wrong, even if it ain’t right. Considering that American racism is antecedent in the development of liberation theology in the first place, and especially considering the tepid-at-best response of the Evangelical community during the Civil Rights movement, I’m not exactly sure why some people are acting like they can’t figure where Reverend Wright is coming from. And I’m sayin’ - I don’t even necessarily agree with him all that tough, but what he said didn’t come completely out of NOWHERE. It’s just extrabiblical.

What they do, go and ban the AK/
The shit wasn’t registered ANY-fuckin-way - Ice Cube

In the case of the Supreme Court’s hearing on the constitutionality of DC’s ban on handguns, I’m on the “pro-gun” side. Maybe I should parse it a little more carefully and say that I’m anti-ban. I don’t have a gun (yet), but it’s really not that major because I don’t live in the District, proper. I live right outside of DC. So this is only marginally about me.

Generally, I don’t think a ban on handguns is effective in preventing crime committed with handguns. It’s certainly not effective in a city-sized jurisdiction. For one thing, there are too many places where people can get guns for a ban to be effective. What literal difference does it make for DC to have a gun ban when Maryland and Virginia don’t? It’s not like there’s an invisible shield on the Potomac, Eastern, and Southern avenues that disintegrates firearms. If I had a gun before I got to DC, I’ll have one while I’m in DC. So on a very literal level, a ban fails on the basis of geography. I know a lot of people like to bring up the example of places in the world where guns are banned to use that as an example, but a big part of what makes their bans effective is that there are geographical barriers in place that prevent firearms from entering in the first place. DC doesn’t have that.

Another limitation – a big limitation – to any sort of a ban on handguns is that the people who commit crimes with handguns tend not to be the people to whom they are registered. Meaning that they already have the gun illegally. So then you’re in the position of banning something that is itself already illegal. Well, actually, that’s where we are now. We have a law that says something illegal is (more?) illegal. The only people who don’t buy guns in the District are the ones who are following the law. I know this is one of the main arguments pro-gun people trot out all the time, but it’s true. What’s more, research has demonstrated that it’s only a certain subset of the population that uses guns for criminal purposes. It’s not like there’s this whole cadre of normal, mild-mannered people who all of a sudden jump bad and turn into raving, murderous, lunatics as soon as they touch a pistol. Naw. For the most part, the people who kill people with guns were already engaged in some criminal enterprises. Now that’s not to say that they all would have been murderers – their access to guns is what drove them over that line – but the point is that given the fact that it’s geographically impossible to keep guns from them, the fact that they used a gun in the commission of a crime is secondary to the fact that they were committing a crime in the first place.

Having said all that, I do recognize that the use of guns in the commission of crimes is a plague on our society. I was about to say that it’s particularly severe in the inner city, but it’s true in the suburbs too. The only thing is, because I work in the inner-city and live in a fairly (but not very) hoodish suburb, the city is what’s most relevant to me. Moreover, because I’m a Black male and still numbered among the demographic that is most likely to die by gunfire, I take gun violence very seriously. At the same time, I recognize that the question of how to curb crimes committed with guns is complicated. There are no simple answers, and if there were, a blanket policy wouldn’t be one of them. Let alone a blanket policy that’s so full of holes it’s essentially untenable.

The money quote: “Art can’t just be a rearview mirror, it should also have a headlight out there.”

BAM.

And you wonder why my curiosity is WAY piqued.

I’d probably suffocate if I waited for all the self-styled conservatives who acted like the world was coming to an end, or that the justice system was broken when the Duke lacrosse team was falsely accused of rape to rise to the cause of Alton Logan, a Chicago man who was convicted of a murder he didn’t commit. They might, but I’m not gonna hold my breath. The long and short of the situation, according to the Sun Times, is this:

Though claims of innocence usually fall on deaf ears, Logan’s claims ring achingly true. A growing body of incontrovertible evidence says Logan did not kill Lloyd Wickliffe, a security guard gunned down at a South Side McDonald’s in 1982.
The latest evidence is a bombshell. In January, two attorneys shared a secret they have carried since 1982: Their client, cop-killer Andrew Wilson, had confessed to killing Wickliffe. But bound by a sacred duty of confidentiality to their client, the two lawyers kept quiet.

Point blank. Innocent man wrongfully convicted. Not wrongfully-charged, not with aspersions cast, wrongfully convicted. And incarcerated. For twenty-six years. Twenty-six. I was in 3rd grade when he was convicted. And after all this time, the evidence that could exonerate him has finally come to light. I’m assuming that the governor and/or the Attorney General will take care of that soon. However, what I’m really concerned about is not the fact that the wheels of justice grind slowly. Even though race is not explicitly an issue in this case, I’m only slightly concerned about the fact that yet another Black man has spent the majority of his life after being convicted of a crime for which he was ultimately found to be innocent. (It matters, but I’m not sure whether we just don’t hear about the wrongfully-convicted white dudes, or if they just don’t get wrongfully convicted. My assumption is that it’s the former, albeit at a much lower rate.) Naw, the big problem is the predictability with which certain politically-affiliated entities seem to work. If the “victim” is white? It’s a problem. The system needs changing. Somebody needs to be held accountable for something. Otherwise, not so much. Proof? See: Duke lacrosse, any given Affirmative Action question…defenders of the confederate battle flag. I don’t even hafta name names, but you already know who I’m talking about and what they’d say.

Not like this tendency is confined to one side of the ideological spectrum. Only thing is, the focus goes from the victim to the perpetrator. In those cases, if the perpetrator is white, THEN it’s indicative of some serious flaw in the system and it demonstrates the need for dire change. Otherwise, meh. Actually, that’s not entirely accurate. There usually is some protest, but it tends to lack the level of fervency that would accompany the same situation if the offender were of a different race.

It is what it is. In something of a twist on Cobb’s post, my perception is that most people’s concern is not at all about justice. It’s about the justification of their ideological position – for whatever purposes there might be.

I knew it wasn’t gonna be that easy. Hillary Clinton didn’t rise this far just to ride out before winter’s even over. Naw, I kinda figured she had some fight left and I pretty much knew that Ohio and Texas would be her last stands. But even with that, she’s still in deep, deep trouble.

To go back to the boxing metaphor I used last time, Obama has been winning rounds impressively, piling up the points. A couple stunning blows here and there, but no real knockdowns. The closest contest which he won was 17%. When he wins, he wins big, meaning that he’s racking up delegates. Hillary’s wins last night, on the other hand, were all by quite a bit less than 17%. Ohio was 9% and Texas was a tightly-contested 4%. While it’s looks good for her to say that she won a round, the fact is that she’s at the point where she pretty much needs a straight-up knockout to win. Even though she picked up wins last night, if I’m correct about the Democratic process, Obama still captured some delegates, so his lead is lessened only slightly.

The thing is this: Texas and Ohio notwithstanding, every round is pretty much a must-win for Hillary now. Not only that, according to some estimates, she’d have to win every contest convincingly - to the tune of 60% of the electorate - in order to make up the deficit. That’s probably not gonna be all that easy to pull off.

Of course, a boxing metaphor wouldn’t be complete if there wasn’t some potential for a screwy decision. While my current thinking is that Hillary would need a knockout in order to win, if Hillary makes a couple more wins, not necessarily even impressive wins, that whole superdelegate issue will again raise its head. If she gets the nomination like that, after Obama’s gotten the majority of the pledged delegates? Maaaaannnnnnnnn…not only will all the interest the political process has earned be squandered at the expense of politics as usual, the Democrats’ relationship with their most loyal voting bloc will be somewhat compromised. I think.