The Supreme Court justices have refused to give Troy Davis a hearing.  Since Davis was convicted of killing an off-duty police officer, seven of the nine eyewitnesses who testified at trial have recanted their testimony.  Two people who did not testify at trial now report that another man has confessed to the murder. 

None of this made any impression on the the Supreme Court.

Did the court refuse to call for a hearing because the initial trial was considered fair and thorough, or do a majority of justices fear that public confidence in the justice system will erode further if the ambiguity of the Davis case is revealed? 

The big question now is whether the state of Georgia will be able to execute Troy Davis before his lawyers have a chance to get an appeal before another court.  The question could be moot: now that the Supreme Court has refused the request for a hearing it will be difficult to get a different ruling from a lower court.

The Davis case shows that the legal system is more concerned with proper procedure than with issues of guilt and innocence.  The system frowns on witnesses who change their minds and not even the kind of massive shift we have witnessed in the Davis case can overcome this predisposition.

Is it okay to execute a man who may be innocent?  This is not a question the justice system understands. 

The best initial coverage came from CNN. 

Since then, CBS has published an article that frames the Davis case as the final and bizarre conclusion of the anti-appeals movement.  The bar in Georgia is now set so high, attorney Andrew Cohen writes, that no case could possibly meet it.   According to Cohen, the Supreme non-decision “virtually guarantees that Davis will be executed despite the grave doubts about his guilt. There will be no evaluation of the Eighth Amendment in these circumstances; no considered review of the new Georgia rule; no ardent discussion between Justices Scalia and Stevens about when, if ever, a defendant like Davis can ever get that meaningful new look from the courts.”

The most telling quote appears in the New York Times piece. “Georgia is willing to risk the credibility of its whole death penalty system in carrying out this one very questionable execution,” said Steven B. Bright, a professor at Yale Law School. “The death penalty should really only be enforced in cases where there is no question about guilt, and that just cannot be said about this case.”

I hope I’m wrong, but I doubt this story will raise more than a ripple of interest from the media.

It wasn’t long ago that conservative pundit Bill Kristol was predicting a renewed “Wright is Wrong” assault on Barack Obama.  Kristol got his inside information from Sarah Palin and assumed that Number 2 provided a reliable window into the heart of Number 1.

Not so.  At least for now. 

John McCain has consistently refused use Jeremiah Wright’s “God damn America” as a blunt instrument.  Moreover, the Arizona Senator hasn’t allowed his Alaskan pit bull to drag the Chicago preacher back into the campaign.  Mike Allen’s article in Politico argues that if McCain’s advisers had their way it would be all-Jeremiah-all-the-time.

McCain has made his opponent’s ties to the now-infamous Bill Ayers the centerpiece of his campaign.  This simply deepens the mystification.  Analysts across the political spectrum have greeted the Ayers connection with skepticism.  Jeremiah Wright, on the other hand, is routinely decried as the-man-who-hates-America by white opinion leaders left, right and center.  The notion that Barack Obama’s erstwhile pastor preachers racial hatred is one of the few issues on which professional experts agree (the current passion for Wall Street welfare being another).

Since I first published this post, several readers have suggested an obvious explanation for McCain’s reluctance: he has a few preacher problems of his own, namely, the Revs. Rod Parsley and Ted Hagee. 

The apocalyptic theology of many evangelical preachers leads them to speculate endlessly about the mystical link between America (the New Israel), the Israel mentioned in the Bible and the modern state of Israel.  The real concern of these speculations is America; Israel, whether ancient or modern, comes in as a means to an end.  As a result, Jews are sometimes presented in a highly ambigous light.  Taken out of context, guys like Parsley and Hagee come off sounding downright anti-semetic.

But I doubt many pundits are willing to do the digging required to sort all of this out.  McCain’s mistake was to take endorsements from men he didn’t understand.  McCain isn’t particularly religious and can’t afford to get chest deep in the exotic waters of American evangelical theology.

Barack Obama’s situation is very different.  He didn’t just take an endorsement from influential but controversial preachers; he willingly sat under the preaching of a single man for decades.  How could Obama not know, detractors ask, that his pastor was a hate-spewing racist?  Unlike McCain, the Democratic candidate was intimately aware of the content of his preacher’s sermons. 

If John McCain tried to embarrass his opponent with the preacher issue he could expect a little media blowback, but not much.  Some people in his camp are clearly eager to play the preacher card.  So the question remains, why is McCain so reluctant to cash in?

As I have noted before, African Americans have a much more nuanced understanding of the Reverend Wright business because black preachers teach that God sometimes abandons his chosen people to the consequences of their actions. 

Take the 11th chapter of Hosea, for example.  God, speaking through the prophet, recalls how tenderly he cared for Ephraim (Israel).  “It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them.  I led them with cords of compassion, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them.”

But when Israel turned to idolatry and contempt for the poor, God’s blessing became a curse.  “They shall return to Egypt, and Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me.  The sword shall rage against their cities, consume the bars of the their gates, and devour them in their fortresses.  My people are bent onh turning away from me; so they are appointed to the yoke and none shall remove it.”

Jeremiah Wright’s talk of chickens coming home to roost sounds pretty tame in comparison.

Bible students will point remind me that the God of Hosea changes his mind, almost in mid-sentence.  “How can I give you up, O Ephraim!  How can I hand you over, O Israel!  My heart recoils within me, my compassion grows warm and tender.  I will not execute my fierce anger, I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come to destroy.”

Nonetheless, a few generations down the road, the Babylonians (the inhabitants of present day Iraq) destroyed the temple in Jerusalem and carried the people of the covenant across the wilderness into foreign captivity. 

How could such a thing have happened?  This is the central question of the Old Testament (the crucifixion of Jesus holds a similar place in the Christian New Testament).  Instead of a single answer you find a prolonged debate in which all participants agree on only one point: God’s chosen people had been punished by God–Babylon was simply the instrument by which the divine decree was carried out.

African Americans have little trouble believing that a just and merciful God can come in judgment against his most fervent admirers. 

A fascinating scene in the 22nd chapter of Acts illustrates the experiential divide separating white and black Americans.  Preaching to a largely Jewish crowd in Jerusalem, the Apostle Paul tells the story of his Damascus Road conversion and claims that God sent him as a missionary to the Gentiles (non-Jews).  When the crowd exploded in fury, a Roman centurian grabbed Paul and dragged him into the barracks that stood near the Temple.

Unfamiliar with Jewish sectarian disputes, the centurian decided to flog his prisoner until he learned what was going on.  Seconds before the first blow fell, Paul asked a question that turned the centurion’s heart to stone: “Is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman citizen, and uncondemned?”

Profuse apologies were offered, Paul was released from the flogging post and the cruel lash was put away.

Being a Roman citizen in the first century was much like being white in contemporary America.  Black Americans know how it feels to be treated as non-citizens.  Nowhere is this more apparent than in the criminal justice system.  This basic inequity drew 20,000 black church people and college students to Jena, Louisiana. 

Abraham Lincoln interpreted the Civil War as the just judgment of God on a chosen nation.  The Almighty had damned America for the sin of slavery.  This explains why Lincoln bore so little malice toward the Southern States: all had sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

White conservatives see America as a nation chosen by God, “a nation of exceptionalism,” as Sarah Palin has it.     

White liberals reject the notion that God has any interest in American politics or any relevance to political debate.

Conservatives castigate the American Jeremiah for suggesting that God regards America as one nation among many.  Liberals reject the notion that God bears any relevance to human affairs.

If John McCain tried to associate his opponent with the hate-monger from Chicago few would question his judgment.

So why is the Republican candidate holding back?

Maybe John McCain understands that there is something about the Jeremiah Wright business that eludes the grasp of white America. 

I doubt very much that McCain appreciates the radicality of the biblical prophets, but he must have noticed that black Americans have a unique take on the Wright episode.  Black leaders have criticized Wright for his choice of words, but they see the “God damn America” bit as one part of one sermon.  Wright’s inelegant and self-indulgent response to criticism earned rebukes from many black pundits, but few have condemned his preaching out of hand. 

Those who know the black experience in America and the black religious tradition were not shocked by the anger in the preacher’s voice or by the suggestion that we have earned the world’s distrust.  It was a hard word, delivered in anger; a species of anger African Americans understand all too well.

However you explain it, John McCain is to be congratulated for his refusal to demagogue the Wright issue.  Barack Obama attended Wright’s church because he was nourished by Rev. Wright’s prophetic insights.  Aging preachers like Jeremiah Wright are angry in a way that a younger generation of black men and women are not.  Black Americans who came to their adult years after the Jim Crow era and the harrowing glory of the civil rights movement can’t always feel the anger, but they understand it all the same.

Barack Obama understands where his former preaching is coming from.  Maybe John McCain understands that he doesn’t understand.

One man in America has good reason to celebrate the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression: Karl Rove.  The House Judiciary Committee has issued a subpoena to the Fox political analyst.  George W’s “Brain” has been linked to the firing of several US Attorneys and the wrongful conviction of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. 

Both stories follow a similar script.  Karl Rove calls the tune and the Department of Justice (represented by either Alberto Gonzalez or an Alamaba US Attorney) dances a jig.  According to reports, the Alabama US Attorney’s Office hounded Siegelman for years before finally getting a grand jury to indict him on bribery charges.

Since the 2005 conviction, fifty four (54) former state attorney generals (many of them Republican) have called for a review of the Siegelman case.  After serving two years of a seven-year federal sentence, the ex-governor has been released pending appeal.  (A 60 Minutes story and a feature in TIME didn’t hurt.)

A scathing Rolling Stone article by Matt Taibbi argues that a desperate John McCain has hired Karl Rove and several Rovian disciples in a last ditch attempt to save a lagging campaign.  McCain was badly mauled by Rove acolytes in the 2000 election and the Republican candidate knows from experience how effective smear tactics can be.  He’d rather ride the Straight Talk Express to the White House, but that doesn’t appear to be in the cards.

The Siegelman legal fiasco, summarized nicely by the Tuscaloosa News, follows a familiar script.  A single witness told a jury that he saw the Governor exchange a committee membership for a donation to the state lottery fund.  Even though defense counsel demonstrated that the person in question had been on the committee for years and that the contribution didn’t benefit Siegelman personally, the jury voted to convict.

Once again, we see the extraordinary power of  eyewitness testimony.

This story demonstrates how politicized (and corrupt) the federal Justice Department has become.  

The parallels between the Siegelman case and the tragic plight of Alvin Clay are striking.  If the FBI was looking for people to investigate, they had their pick of thousands of compromised Wall Street traders and mortgage tycoons.  Instead, they are going after small-time operators like Mr. Clay, a black Little Rock attorney who allowed an unscrupulous business associate to use his contractors license. 

Clay says he had no idea Ray Nealy was arranging bogus real estate deals.  A single witness, exchanging perjured testimony for lenient treatment, told the story the US Attorney’s Office wanted to hear. 

Once again, the production of a single eye witness worked wonders with an all-white jury.

Most jurors in Alabama couldn’t believe that a US Attorney would pursue a bogus case against a politician simply because Karl Rove told him to do it.

Most jurors in Arkansas couldn’t believe that the US government had chosen, for no particular reason, to believe an incredible witness. 

Matt Taibbi’s highly partisan assault on Karl Rove underscores the power of brazen assertion.  Say something is so, repeatedly and with gusto, and most people will believe it.  Taibbi’s prose can get pretty rough, but he writes like an angel.  Consider this gem: “One is tempted to call this brilliant tactics, except that it isn’t brilliant, any more than pointing a gun at a Korean store owner is a “brilliant” way to make $135.”

Taibbi reminds us that Tim Griffin, one of the Rovian footsoldiers who replaced a fired Arkansas US Attorney, resigned after being accused of operating a racist vote caging scheme in Florida.  Griffin landed on his feet when he was assigned to dig up dirt on Barack Obama. 

Griffin, incidentally, was the US Attorney who demoted Assistant US Attorney Bob Govar for threatening to use his political clout to retaliate against a newspaper editor.  The editor had accused Govar of asking the FBI to turn a blind eye to a police chief who was eventually convicted of manufacturing, stealing, using and selling illegal drugs.  The police chief was Govar’s old friend.

So, instead of investigating a drug dealing police chief who illegally sold the services of county jail inmates to the highest bidder, the FBI, at Govar’s direction, decided to investigate Alvin Clay.  When their case fell apart, they plowed ahead anyway in the certain knowledge that an eyewitness, even the least credible man in the great state of Arkansas, would convince a jury.  

Compare Alvin Clay and Karl Rove and ask yourself who deserves to do time.  Subpoenaed to testify before the House Judiciary Committee, Rove thumbs his nose with impunity.  And now, it appears, Rove is on the payroll of another presidential candidate and, with an economic crisis and all, nobody is paying attention.

The media isn’t paying attention to Alvin Clay either, but for an entirely different reason.

Scott Henson at Grits for Breakfast has an excellent piece on the dangers of eyewitness testimony.  Police officers and prosecutors are well aware of the weakness of eyewitness testimony, Henson writes, but they are also addicted to the sure fire results.

Douglas Kmiec is a devout Roman Catholic with impeccable pro-life credentials.  Furthermore, he is a Republican stalwart who recently co-chaired Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign.  Kmiec’s conservative triple-A rating explains why he regularly gave legal advice to presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.  So you can’t blame Mary Schmich with the Chicago Tribune for asking what a guy like Doug Kmiec is doing endorsing Barack Obama?

This surprising story was brought to my attention by a reader who, Like Mr. Kmiec, teaches at Pepperdine University.  I was disturbed to learn that, shortly after endorsing the Democratic presidential candidate, Kmiec was refused communion by a Roman Catholic priest who, in his homily, warned his flock against the grievous sin of voting blue.

Politics, as they say, makes strange bedfellows, and that has never been truer than in the 2008 electoral season.  When asked if we are Democrats or Republicans, Tony Campolo says, we should answer, “On what issue?”

Kmiec still calls himself a Republican.  He will likely die a Republican.  He thinks his party has it right on the abortion issue.  But Kmiec knows that abortion, however important, is one issue among many.  Roman Catholic moral theology has been called “a seamless garment” because one consistent ethic of life informs a range of issues from abortion to war to capital punishment. 

David Brooks, a Jew, was impressed to learn that Barack Obama has a nuanced grasp of Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr’s Christian realism.  Douglas  Kmiec is voting for Obama because the Chicago politician thinks like a Catholic.

Both presidential candidates this year are eclectic pragmatists who like workable solutions.  John McCain’s “Mavericky” streak (to quote Tina Fey) makes him the only Republican candidate capable of beating Obama (or Hillary Clinton) in a year when all the cards are falling for the Democrats.  Obama, contra McCain, can’t be written off as a knee-jerk liberal. 

Given all the partisan animus in the air, it is refreshing to see voters with flexible and open minds.  But as the Kmiec story suggests, openness comes with a price.

GOP Catholic backs Obama
Mary Schmich

October 8, 2008

Doug Kmiec went to mass, as usual, at Our Lady of Malibu on Tuesday morning. Then he drove up the hill to his office to talk to me by phone about how a Republican Catholic opposed to abortion could endorse Barack Obama. (more…)

Partisan politics has gone mainstream.  FOX News, led by the hard-charging Bill O’Reilly, is a big favorite with hardline Republicans.  More recently, MSNBC, led by the ascerbic Keith Olbermann, has become a safe harbor for ardent Democrats. 

Some decry the loss of objectivity and balance; others argue that journalists have always been partisan and might as well let their biases show.

Partisanship is predictable.  Jon Stewart recently played two equal-and-opposite clips of “paid partisans” spouting the orthodox Democrat and Republican lines.  “Thank you for taking up time,” Stewart smirked.  In other words, if everybody knows precisely what you’re going to say, why not keep it zipped?

Does critiquing a candidate’s judgment make one a partisan?  During this election season, many solidly conservative pundits have declared neutrality.  George Will and David Brooks can’t bring themselves to endorse Barack Obama outright; but the selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate has sparked some chilly prose from conservative elitists.

In an interview with an Atlantic reporter, David Brooks frankly admits that Sarah Palin is qualified to be neither vice president or president.  Moreover, the New York Times columnist lavishes praise on Barack Obama.  He doesn’t think much of the Democrat’s brief career in the Senate, but he says Obama has surrounded himself with world-class talent.

I would be nice to see more left-leaning columnists showing the same sense of fairness.  It is one thing to criticize a politicians politics; the kind of character assasination we have seen in recent days gnaws at the foundations of democracy.  

I have frequently criticized the Republican Party for its lack of racial inclusiveness.  It isn’t just that the GOP becomes more monochromatic with each election cycle; my central concern is that so few Republicans seem concerned about it.  George W. Bush made a good faith effort to woo black and Latino voters, but we haven’t seen much enthusiasm for the project among rank and file Republicans.  The Southern strategy embraced by Richard Nixon is based on the assumption that the GOP can win without significant support from non-white voters.  Tragically, this approach has worked very well.  But it is only a matter of time until the racial equation tips in favor of the Democrats. 

I would love to see two major political parties, one conservative, the other progressive, both valuing racial and ethnic diversity.  Watching the all-white crowds fawning over Ms. Palin I sometimes spot a single black face prominently displayed behind the candidate.  Are they paying this guy, I wonder, or is he too out of touch to realize he’s not welcome?

Newsweek recently published a story about “Obama’s other Pastor,” Kirbyjon Caldwell, a culturally conservative black pastor from Houston.  Caldwell has prayed at several key Republican gatherings in recent years and is a good personal friend of George W. Bush.

But this year, Caldwell, like virtually every other black preacher in the country, is backing Obama.  

White evangelicals often claim that they reject the Democratic candidate because of his liberal stance on homosexuality and abortion.  Caldwell is strictly pro-life and, just like Sarah Palin’s home congregation, his church boasts a program dedicated to praying gay men straight.  The Obama people have a problem with that but politics, as they say, is the art of the possible.

When Rev. Caldwell announced his support for Obama he was roundly denounced by the Republican establishment. 

Why are black Christians embracing a candidate that most white evangelicals find unacceptable?  Are black conservatives addicted to a single party, or do white evangelicals have a problem with racial diversity? 

I take no delight in characterizing the GOP as “the party of white”.  I wish it were otherwise.  I want it to be otherwise.  I have great respect for traditional conservatism, but unless we see dramatic change, and soon, a steady demographic transition will make it impossible to win a presidential election without a true rainbow coalition.  That day has not yet arrived, but it isn’t far off.

The J. McDonald Williams Institute is making Dallas a safer, more cohesive place to live.  On October 16th, the Institute is hosting its Annual Conference, an opportunity for scholars, public officials and activists to learn from one another.  Alan Bean of Friends of Justice will be speaking on a panel called “Community Organizing for Change and Wholeness” (the full conference agenda can be found here).   If you live within driving distance of Dallas, Texas and committed to positive social change I urge you to register for this important event.

 

Equity in a Time of Retrenchment:
More Urgent than Ever

Thursday, October 16th, 8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Dallas Convention Center
Ballroom A
650 S. Griffin St.
Dallas, Texas

$90 full day; $50 luncheon forum only; $40 students full day

Registration & Continental Breakfast begin at 7:30 a.m.

 In just three years, the Williams Institute conference has established a unique place in Dallas. No other event draws the same potent mix of policymakers, scholars, community builders and engaged citizens, all dedicated to the betterment of our city and region. No other event will add as much to your store of knowledge, contacts, and hope for the future of our communities. Plus, with the election just weeks away and the nation’s financial system in disarray, we’ve invited representatives of the presidential campaigns to answer your questions about what an Obama or McCain presidency would mean for federal policies affecting you and all North Texas residents.

The Institute doesn’t pretend to have all the answers. Our mission is to gather together the people whose collective wisdom can bring hope and wholeness to distressed communities. In that spirit, each 2008 conference breakout session will be presented by a “content partner,” an organization in the vanguard of effective community building. Click the “agenda” tab above for a description of each session and a link to the content parther’s Web site.

To learn more, click here.

The first anniversary of the historic march on Jena stirred hardly a ripple of interest in the mainstream media, but has received significant attention in the regional press.  This article in the Monroe paper slipped my attention when it appeared two weeks ago, but it is well worth reading.

Two men celebrate the nine-week religious revival that swept through Jena last year: the Rev. Jimmy Young and DA Reed Walters.

Accordingtto Rev. Young, the events of last year broke Jena wide open, revealing long-simmering problems and pointing the way to a better future.   “This blowing up brought the issues to everyone’s attention,” Young said. “It wasn’t a problem to some because the way things were happening was the way things had always been done. But now people know those things may not have been right. And we aren’t going back to doing everything the way we always did.”

Reed Walters is also thrilled with the revival that began in Midway Baptist Church, his home congregation, and spread to other churches in Jena.  But his assessment of the background issues stands in stark contrast to the words of Rev. Young:

“There is a popular misconception that we had racial problems, and I don’t think that was ever accurate. But this past spring – and I think this was as an offshoot of the case – a spirit of religious revivalism came over the community and that has brought people together in a way I’ve never seen before. It started in my own church in February and, without any coordinated advance planning, spread to other churches. We had black people and white people coming together night after night to worship and communicate. And it’s left us a stronger, more tight-knit community.”

The Rev.  Lyndle Bullard, pastor of Nolley Memorial United Methodist Church, shares Walters’ enthusiasm, but his understanding of the background issues is much closer to the views of Rev. Young.  While most Jena businesses closed down the day of the massive rally in Jena, Bullard encouraged his congregation to open its doors to the protesters. 

“I think the events of Sept. 20 changed my church,” Bullard said of the rally. “I think it scared them at first that we were opening up the church, but when nothing happened to the church and they came up and spoke to the people who came, it opened up their hearts. Wonderful is the only way I can describe it.” 

Did the march on Jena open the way to a new civil rights movement?  When reporter Abbey Brown asked me this question I was forced to answer in the negative. 

“The main impact the controversy has had on the Jena Six is at the courthouse,” said Alan Bean, the founder of Texas-based Friends of Justice. “They have first-rate legal representation, which means the legal system will operate differently than it normally would. I think they’d all be in prison right now if we hadn’t intervened.”

But as far as the events of a year ago today being the beginnings of a new civil rights era, they aren’t. They could have been, Bean said, but instead it became a one-time demonstration.

“I think the demonstration showed the concerns of black America with the justice system, although most didn’t have a solid grasp of the facts in Jena,” he said. “Instead, most came because of a personal experience, a concern about the justice system.”

If the Jena Six case was looked at to point out the systemic issues – if we have a truly fair and equal justice system – rather than a case about six kids, it could have become a movement. But when civil rights celebrities like the Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson got involved, the message shifted, Bean said.

Because Sharpton and Jackson focused all their attention on the alleged racism of local officials, Jena never became a symbol of what many call “the school to prison pipeline.” 

As pastors Young and Bullard understand, racism was always at the heart of the Jena story.  By refusing to call a hate crime by its proper name, public officials validated the de facto segregation that had been in effect at the High School since its grudging integration in 1970.  When black students protested, Reed Walters came to the school auditorium, waved his pen in the air, and reminded his audience that, “With a stroke of my pen, I can make your lives disappear.”

To many students, black and white, it seemedthe prosecutor was taking sides.  The school superintendent had dismissed the noose hanging incident as a childish prank and now the most powerful public official in LaSalle Parish was endorsing that verdict.

Al Sharpton argued that the white students who hung the nooses should have been tried as hate criminals and packed off to prison. 

I strenuously disagree.   

Prison time is almost always a poor response to boneheaded adolescent behavior.  Transforming the noose hangers into felons would have marked these confused young men for life and taught them nothing. 

Charging the Jena 6 with attempted murder threatened to have the same effect.  These kids would be currently be serving 25 year stretches in the state penitentiary without parole if Friends of Justice hadn’t intervened.  Reed Walters swore defiantly that he would be seeking the maximum penalities allowed by law and he was deadly serious. 

No Jena High students should have been packed off to prison for their involvement in the Jena fiasco.  Like the hanging of nooses, the beating of Justin Barker called for a strong disciplinary response (juvenile probation, perhaps).  But you can’t consider the legal issues until you understand that public officials who should have known better intensified the racial animus between black athletes and rural white students. 

The criminal justice system had no good answers for Jena’s racial issues.  In fact, that system, represented by Reed Walters, helped shape the tragic events of December 4th, 2006.   With a wave of his pen, Walters transformed a teachable moment into a deadly power struggle. 

Walters didn’t see any racism at Jena High in the autumn of 2006.  In a school assembly at the beginning of the academic year, a black freshman asked if he could sit under a tree that had traditionally been the reserve of white students.  The principal said he could.  The black student and a few of his friends tested out their new freedom.  The next morning nooses were hanging from that tree.

Like the folks commenting on the article (click on the link, and you will see what I mean), Reed Walters can’t see even a glint of racial animus in this flow of events, and Reed Walters’ name is legion. 

Stephen Colbert frequently asks his guests to designate their race because, “I can’t see color.  They tell me you are black, but I just can’t see it.”

Walters’ response to Jena’s infamous nooses reflects the same warped sensibility–except Walters means it. 

How amazing, then, that Walters and his real-world colleagues can celebrate the new spirit of racial openness in their community.  Jena has it’s share of demons, but angels abound as well.  Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound.

‘Jena Six’ rattled community, taught lessons

JENA – On Sept. 19, 2007, dread hung in the air. Chants of “Free the Jena Six” hadn’t been started by the thousands bused in the next day to Jena, but fear and chaos reigned as town and law enforcement officials braced for the worst. (more…)

The current credit crunch has everybody scared.  During last night’s debate, you could see the fear in the eyes of the folks asking the questions. 

The stock market is in free fall, but the economists are paying attention to the credit markets–and right now there isn’t much credit on offer and the gears of business are seizing up. 

Like John McCain, I will freely admit that economics is not my forte.  I’m good at arithmetic, but when the Paul Krugman types trot out equations with funny letters my eyes glaze over.  The same can be said for 95% of us.  This is complicated stuff, and there is ample evidence that the folks who do understand the equations are just as confused as the rest of us. 

We should be thankful, therefore, for folks like Daniel Gross who call us back to basics.  

As Gross notes, conseratives are desperate to tie the financial crisis to the bad behavior of liberal politicians and the poor minority people they represent.  As Barack Obama admitted last night, there is plenty of blame to spread around.  The political establishment, right and left, was so thrilled with the Wall Street money machine that nobody asked the obvious questions.  Politicians on both sides of the ideological divide milked the money machine for every nickel it could churn out–good times are great for incumbents.

Pandering to greed is a lot like pandering to fear.  People are afraid, so you sell them prisons and legislation designed to fill them.  People want easy money, so you sell them complicated financial schemes that nobody understands.  When disaster strikes, who ya gonna blame?

Poor people!

The role of poor people in American politics is to take the fall for the rest of us.  If it wasn’t for those poor folks (especially those of black and brown complection) we’d be doing great.  But they keep breaking the law and defaulting on their loans and good people like us have to clean up the mess.  Why can’t they be like we are, perfect in every way, what’s the matter with trugs today?

Daniel Gross points us back to the obvious:

There was a culture of stupid, reckless lending, of which Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the subprime lenders were an integral part. But the dumb-lending virus originated in Greenwich, Conn., midtown Manhattan, and Southern California, not Eastchester, Brownsville, and Washington, D.C. Investment banks created a demand for subprime loans because they saw it as a new asset class that they could dominate. They made subprime loans for the same reason they made other loans: They could get paid for making the loans, for turning them into securities, and for trading them-frequently using borrowed capital.

In other words: “Lending money to poor people doesn’t make you poor. Lending money poorly to rich people does.”

I have frequently argued that our dysfunctional criminal justice system is a bipartisan nightmare.  Politicians rarely mumble a word of complaint in th face of bizarre levels of incarceration, a counterproductive war on drugs, or the us-against-them mentality that pervades policing in poor communities. 

Barack Obama, though he knows better, follows the familiar pattern.  VP candidate Joe Biden championed Bill Clinton’s ill-conceived crime bill of 1994.  Just as Mr. Obama has been fighting back against swift boating tactics, he is determined to position himself to the right of John McClain on the crime issue.  As a result, the Republican candidate hasn’t even tried to use fear of crime as a wedge issue.

But, as Radley Balko argues in this Slate article, the practical consequences of Obama’s smart politics will be dire.  It is particularly disappointing to see an African American candidate calling for the re-funding of the Byrne grant program that gave us the infamous Tulia drug sting (the case that targeted a poor black community and brought Friends of Justice into existence).  George W. Bush, to his credit, has made deep cuts in Byrne program.

With Mr. Balko, I agree in principle that we need more police officers doing foot patrols in high-crime neighborhoods.  The cop-on-the-beat gets to know the people he is sworn to serve and protect and is much less likely to slide into the paranoid and adversarial mindset that has weakened too many police departments.  But did Bill Clinton’s bill really put more cops on the beat, or did the money fund the same old failed policies?  Read Balko’s provocative article (written from a conservative, libertarian perspective) and give us your opinion.