Tag: justice

Categories
At Large Opinion

Margaritaville

Who’s to blame? (Photo: Bruce VanWyngarden)

There’s a Mexican restaurant near me where I go for dinner every week or so. The hostess and the waitresses know me. I’m the guy who always orders the fish (or camarones) tacos, a side of queso dip, and a house margarita — and tips nicely. They even know the booth I like. 

The place is usually populated with diners of all ethnicities. The background music is some kind of Ameri-Mexican blend with bright pop hooks and a beat you could dance to if you had more than one house margarita. There’s usually a soccer game on the television. It’s a clean, lively, friendly place. I can eat, look at my phone, and sip my margarita in peace.

The hostess and waitresses speak English better than most of their customers. They’re smart and engaging and easy to chat with. The busboys, not so much. Sometimes, I’ll stop one and ask for something — a fresh napkin, a straw — and they just shake their heads and smile, and go get a waitress. They don’t understand English very well, I assume. They could have crossed the border legally and are waiting for a work visa or a disposition on their application for asylum, but it’s also quite possible they are here without papers, working hard and laying low, hoping to avoid the coming storm. 

From my seat, I can hear the busboys and kitchen staff chattering in a Spanish spoken so quickly and colloquially that it would baffle Duo the Lingo Owl. It makes me wonder what’s going to happen in a month or so if the new president and his minions follow through on their campaign pledge to institute “mass deportations.” 

Will sheriff’s deputies, U.S. Marshals, or even the National Guard barge through the front door of my favorite little haunt at dinner time and march off with half the staff in handcuffs? Will they then sweep their way down Summer Avenue, stopping at all the Hispanic-owned businesses, demanding, “Papers, please”?

Will the same law-enforcement brigades start hitting up the construction sites around town, taking away the crews who build our homes and office buildings? Will they begin visiting the massive farming operations across the South and West that rely on millions of immigrants to harvest the nation’s crops? Will they raid the packing plants where immigrants prepare the beef, poultry, and pork for our grocery stores? 

If it happens, it’s going to be another of those moments when ideology meets reality and it’s not going to be pretty. When fulfilling a campaign promise leads to a major disruption of the economy, when ensuing worker shortages lead to abrupt price increases, when oranges, tomatoes, and all our other produce lie rotting in our fields and orchards, will Trump and the GOP hard-liners blink? Will they really risk an economic meltdown to own the libs? Will the Americans who voted for this madness finally figure out how effed-up it is?

When millions of families are separated from loved ones, when there are mass camps of “illegal” humans of all ages across the country, when the real costs and the enormous cruelty of trying to deport 10 million people become obvious, will the politicians who ran on this xenophobic bullshit back down? Who knows?

Reporters around the country are already asking governors whether they will cooperate with federal deportation plans. Such cooperation might well involve authorizing state National Guard troops to help with rounding up suspects. In red states, including Tennessee, governors have mostly spouted the GOP party line when questioned, saying that they would do whatever the president asked them to do. In blue states, the opposite reaction has mostly occurred, with governors, mayors, and other regional officials saying they would not use local resources to help with mass deportation. 

Look, if Republicans really wanted to fix immigration, they would start at the top and start prosecuting employers who hire undocumented laborers. Problem solved. But that’s never going to happen. Employers are the wrong color and they have money to grease political palms. And since the polarization game plan just won an election, I suspect it will be in play for the next four years. My advice is to speak out for justice when and where it’s possible. Then go have a margarita, if you can find one.

Categories
News News Blog

Webber’s Shooting Called ‘Boiling Point For Community’

CREDIT: Facebook


Civil rights groups say the community’s response to Wednesday’s fatal shooting of Brandon Webber at the hands of U.S. Marshals officers goes beyond the events of this week and is the result of years of injustice.

Just City said in a Thursday statement via Twitter that the neighborhood’s response is based on “decades of sustained over-policing and entrenched policies that criminalize poverty.”

“The loss of another young life was but a spark on the smoldering ashes that exist in so many neighborhoods in our community,” reads the statement from Just City. “Every single day in Memphis, young and old alike encounter oppressive systems, which are nearly impossible to avoid or escape.”

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Just City said the courts demand more time and attention from the poor than the wealthy, so “even simple traffic tickets can cause a crisis.”

“Hefty” court costs and fees, which if not paid result in driver’s license suspensions, is one way that Just City said those living in poverty are unfairly treated by the system.

“Law enforcement and courts demand accountability for the slightest misstep,” Just City said. “Yet when a life is taken in a hail of gunfire, we wait for days, weeks, or years for a simple description of what occurred, and officers are rarely, if ever, held accountable.”

Webber’s Shooting Called ‘Boiling Point For Community’

Hedy Weinberg, director of the ACLU of Tennessee, shared similar sentiments Thursday, saying that the community’s response was “clearly one of pain, of frustration, of anger.”

“While we in no way condone violence against police officers, the boiling point reached by some individuals in the crowd last night is the consequence of decades of injustice, discrimination, and violence against black people in Memphis and beyond,” Weinberg said. “Of course people in Frayser are upset and angry. We should all be angry.”


Weinberg continues saying that to ignore the pain of protesters and instead to respond with “a militarized show of police force, only illustrates and reinforces the problem.”

Facebook

Brandon Webber

“To adapt the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., unrest is the language of the unheard,” Weinberg said. “To stem the erosion of trust between the community and law enforcement, it is incumbent on Memphis leaders to start listening. This means acknowledging the community’s legitimate pain and anger.”

Weinberg also questioned if there were any attempts made by the officers to de-escalate the situation before shooting Webber: “Was shooting Mr. Webber over a dozen times, if reports are accurate, really necessary?”

There should be a “swift, thorough, and transparent” investigation into the shooting and a “prompt” release of any footage or evidence related to the incident, Weinberg said.

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The Memphis branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) also wants answers surrounding Webber’s death.

In a Thursday statement, Deidre Malone, president of the Memphis branch, said the group is “very interested” in determining whether or not the U.S. Marshal officers that shot Webber were wearing body cameras and if there “was a better way to engage Mr. Webber once he was located.”

“Unfortunately for our citizens, Memphis is again in the spotlight over a shooting of an African American,” Malone said. “The NAACP Memphis Branch will continue to ask these questions until we obtain a response.”


Categories
Politics Politics Feature

GADFLY: Let’s Hear It for Barristers on the Barricades!

I sat, dumbfounded, as I watched a demonstration, en masse,
in Pakistan against the oppressive rule by that country’s strongman (and our
“ally”), Pervez Musharraf, by a group of outraged citizens. Who were they? Not
members of the typically rebellious masses (i.e., college students, factory
workers, union members, political dissidents, etc.), but a group of LAWYERS!

How could this be, I wondered. Lawyers (a status I proudly
claim) are usually part of the cosseted elite, beneficiaries of the status quo,
recipients of the government’s favors, and cogs in the wheels of justice,
government and societal processes in general. More often than not they go along
to get along as part of the power structure. They are usually well-paid,
respected (stereotype-driven prejudice to the contrary notwithstanding) and
comfortable members of the elite. Yet here they were, raucously demonstrating,
throwing rocks at (and

being beaten by) the police, and vociferously protesting the policies of
their government. Right on, brothers! Lawyers just don’t do this, I thought.
It’s contrary to their delicate constitutions, and their self-interest.

As it turns out, the Pakistani lawyers were righteously
indignant about Musharraf’s “emergency” measures, dictatorially imposed on the
country, including the suspension of the country’s constitution, cancellation of
elections, the arrest and detention of the country’s chief justice, the closure
of privately-owned broadcast media and the replacement of many of the country’s
high court’s judges with ones more to the dictator’s liking. Wow, I thought;
this sounds vaguely reminiscent of what’s happening right here, in the good ole
US of A. Bush has all but suspended the constitution (i.e., eliminating habeas
corpus, warrantlessly eavesdropping on American citizens, engaging in torture
and stacking the Supreme Court, and the inferior courts, with his ideological
kinsmen). But he doesn’t see the parallels. Indeed, in

a moment of supreme irony, Bush’s press secretary said (in reference to
Musharraf’s actions) that it was not reasonable to restrict constitutional
freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism.

Bush has relied on compliant (if not complicit) lawyers in
the justice department (headed, until recently, by the ultimate kiss ass,
Alberto Gonzales), to tell him what he wants to hear when it comes to bending or
breaking various laws and the constitution. And now it appears we will be
treated to another Bush lawyer/sycophant at the helm of that department, Michael
Mukasey, who

refused to say that a favored torture tactic, water boarding, is
unconstitutional. Nonetheless, can you imagine lawyers in this country
taking to the streets to protest our strongman’s infringements of
constitutional and human rights? I know I can’t. And yet, no one is in a better
position to protest our dictator’s policies, or has more at stake, than this
country’s legal establishment.

Musharaf has obviously taken a page from Shakespeare in
dealing with Pakistan’s lawyers. It is a favorite Shakespearean verse, often
quoted by people who hold lawyers in less than high regard, that, paraphrasing,
“the first thing we should do is kill all the lawyers.” I’ve heard this line
many times, once even from a now-deceased federal judge who uttered it,
astonishingly enough, in the courthouse elevator as several lawyers got on to
ride to the courtroom floor. I reminded him, as politely as I could, that in
addition to being a judge, he was also a lawyer and would probably go with the
rest of us (indeed, probably before us) if his prescription were to be followed.
But, the quote from Shakespeare is never cited in the context the Bard wrote it.
In fact, Dick the Butcher, a character in Henry VI, utters the remark as
part of a plot by another character in the play, Jack Cade, a rabble-rouser and
pretender to the throne of England, to take down the government. Eliminating
lawyers, according to Dick, was a necessary part of a successful revolt. Dick
and Perez obviously share the same philosophy.

In this country, far from protesting the abuses of law and
the constitution practiced by the current administration, lawyers have
shamelessly capitulated to, if not facilitated, the excesses of the Bush
administration. Whether it was John Yoo, the Justice Department lawyer (who
John Ashcroft referred to as “Dr. Yes” for his willingness to tell the White
House what it wanted to hear), who opined that whatever the president wanted to
do in a time of war (including torture) was permissible, whether or not it was
prohibited by statute or the constitution, or Scooter Libby (remember him?) who
outed a covert CIA agent in the service of his own “Dick the Butcher,” or now
Mr. Mukasey, who appears ready to immunize from prosecution for war crimes the
agents of our government who may have engaged in torture, and their superiors
(up to and including Bush) who authorized it, American lawyers (with some

notable exceptions) have been stunningly, deafeningly silent in the face of
the Bush administration’s abuses . And lawyers like Arlen Specter, Chuck Schumer
and Lindsay Graham (who also happen to be U.S. senators), have, by approving
Mukasey’s nomination, even as they professed outrage at his unwillingness to
declare water boarding torture, have ignominiously shamed their profession by
carrying the administration’s water on that nomination.

American lawyers have stood by and watched Bush nominate
candidates for the Supreme Court who swore, under oath, that they would honor
the principle of “stare decisis” (precedent), and then proceeded, in several
cases,

to violate that oath and decimate long-standing precedents. They stood by in
2000 when the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Bush vs. Gore,

one of the most political decisions in its 200 plus year existence (with the
possible exception of its DredScott pro-slavery opinion), which

robbed the winner of that election of his rightful victory. Sadly, American
lawyers have frequently been more a part of the problem in the decimation of the
rule of law in this country than part of the solution.

So I stand with my Pakistani brothers in law, in spirit if
not in body, and say, “I support your cause, because it is just.” But call me a
hypocrite, because I just don’t think I’ll be throwing any rocks (at least not
literally), manning any barricades, or suffering any police beatings over here
protesting Pervez Bush’s violations of the constitution or the rule of law over
here, anytime soon. When all is said and done, I’m afraid I’m just another
proud, and chicken, member of the establishment.