One of my favorite writers is David French, more so for his exceptional prose than his insight much of the time. Some people just write really well, and I, for one, envy their skill. So when French took on the burden of explaining why “structural racism” isn’t wokeness, or to be more direct, the religious right case against systemic racism, it seems that maybe, just maybe, I would finally find some answers to my question, “what the hell are they talking about.”

Enforcing the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause and passing the Civil Rights Act was (and is) necessary to end overt, legal discrimination, but it was hardly sufficient to ameliorate the effects of slavery and Jim Crow. These effects are so embedded in our system that powerful people often perpetuate those structures even when they lack any racist intent at all.

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Every once in a while, a defendant has something to say to a judge that has a positive impact. But that’s like betting on lightning striking. The vast majority of the time, when a defendant speaks out in court, whether he blurts something out in the midst of trial or even after he’s been fully prepped at sentence, it’s at best unavailing and at worst a disaster that ends up doing grave damage.

So naturally, a law review article suggests that defendants should be allowed, even encouraged, to share their voices with the court, unfiltered by their lawyers, and “talk back” to the judge. Continue reading →

Cops don’t want to deal with people having a psychotic episode any more than the people  who call because someone is having a mental health crisis want cops to kill them. The problem was one of default. Who else can you get to respond? In New York City, there’s a standing army of NYPD to take the call, but no smaller army of mental health personnel on top of the cops to respond. So they tried an experiment and it turned out pretty well.

The B-HEARD program — it stands for Behavioral Health Emergency Assistance Response Division — launched in a portion of Harlem last month and has sent teams of three unarmed, behavioral health specialists to respond to more than 100 911 calls.
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A few things are relatively uncontroversial. New Yorkers do not like guns. Progressives do not like guns. New York’s public defenders are, politically, very progressive. New York’s public defenders support the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms.

Wait, what? You read that right.

The incorporated Second Amendment affords the people “the right to keep and bear arms.” U.S. Const. amends. II, XIV; McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010); District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008). Despite the clear text and this Court’s precedent, New York’s licensing regime does the opposite. It deprives everyone of that right, only returning it to those select few who manage to first secure a firearm license from the police. For everyone else, possession of a firearm is effectively a “violent felony,” punishable by 3.5 to 15 years in prison. N.Y. Penal Law §§ 265.03; 70.02(1)(b). New York’s licensing requirements criminalize the exercise of the fundamental Second Amendment right, with rare exception.

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President Joe Biden called the voting laws being enacted by red states “Jim Crow on steroids,” as if being denied a gift of water from a party seeking a vote was worse, on steroids, from lynching. Granted, Biden’s absurd hyperbole has become the norm for deep political thought among the unduly passionate, but the fact that he invoked the post-Civil War Jim Crow era today raised the question David Brooks asks: What does America of 150 years ago have to do with America today?

Anybody with eyes to see and ears to hear knows about the oppression of the Native Americans, about slavery and Jim Crow. But does that mean that America is even now a white supremacist nation, that whiteness is a cancer that leads to oppression for other groups?

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There’s a routine now. Get called out, whether for good reason or not, whether for something new or ancient, whether for something true or false, and watch the insipid gnats swarm, fearful that they might miss the chance to prove their virtue and because they so adore a chance to part of the gang. Half the time, they aren’t quite sure why they’re swarming, condemning, shaming, but nobody wants to miss the chance to condemn. It’s the new national past time.

The next step in the routine is that the target of this condemnation, bows their head and apologizes. As Seth Moskowitz argues at Arc Digital, it’s one thing if the target of the mob agrees with the criticism and apologizes because he recognizes that he was wrong. It happens that people make mistakes. And when one does, an apology and recognition of a mistake is what a normal reasonable person does. Continue reading →

Make no mistake, she’s smart. She’s had years to hone her craft of constructing a narrative built on false statistical claims, pseudo-scientific claims and a huge mountain of sophistry. And as the chief of the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, she will have the bureaucratic ability to push her outcome to fruition, one way or another. She’s Catherine Lhamon, whom the Wall Street Journal calls “one of the worst excesses of the Obama years.”

She’s back. President Biden has nominated Catherine Lhamon to head OCR. It’s no surprise, but it is cynical and hypocritical. It is a shame that Biden happily sacrificed male students to placate the worst of his party’s left wing. Continue reading →

You cannot help but be inspired by Becca Meyers. She didn’t ask for her challenges. She did nothing to deserve them. But she didn’t let them define or limit her, and instead won three gold medals at the Rio Paralympics in swimming. Big deal? It is when you’re blind and deaf.

The 26-year-old suffers from Usher syndrome, which caused her to be blind. She has also been deaf since birth.

Usher syndrome is a rare genetic disorder that causes deafness “due to an impaired ability of the inner ear and auditory nerves to transmit sensory (sound) input to the brain (sensorineual hearing loss) accompanied by retinitis pigmentosa, a disorder that affects the retina and causes progressive loss of vision,” according to the National Organization for Rare Diseases.

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I love Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Granted, they don’t make the most intersectional flavor ever, Maple Walnut, but they make some other delicious flavors.** It’s dense. It’s creamy. It’s got lots of fun stuff in there. Yes, it’s very expensive, but some things are worth it. Plus, Jerry’s got a cool last name.

The brand started as a hippy approach to capitalism, projecting a vibe that supported liberal causes and enjoyed the trappings of the age, like tie-dyed shirts and reflected in it’s motto, “Peace, Love and Ice Cream,” Ben and Jerry made their way from Long Island to Oberlin to Burlington, Vermont, where the ’60s never went out of style. Social consciousness was always a part of their corporate psyche, which was fine because they made really great ice cream. Continue reading →

Cops are quitting. Cops are retiring. Cops are turning down assignments they perceive to put them at risk of public damnation. While “defund” or “abolish” the police has done little to change sane minds, the public perception of cops has shifted and it has taken its toll.

In the past year, city police departments across the country have reported a dramatic drop in manpower, as cops retire, resign, or leave for the suburbs. The NYPD’s headcount fell to its lowest level in ten years. In Chicago, police retirements rose 15 percent. The San Francisco Police Department is short 400 officers; over 115 officers, including an entire unit dedicated to crowd control, have left the Portland PD; and nearly 200 have left the Minneapolis PD or are on leave, rendering the department unable to engage in proactive policing. A recent survey of police departments found that hiring fell an average of 5 percent in 2020, while resignations rose 18 percent and retirements a whopping 45 percent.

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