Back To Work

Kinda' back to work. Reading two anthologies at the moment. The first, Law in the Domains of Culture, edited by Austin Sarat and Thomas R. Kearns, and Cultural Analysis, Cultural Studies, and the Law: Moving Beyond Legal Realism, edited by Austin Sarat and Jonathan Simon. Austin Sarat, by the way, the main guy on law, culture, and legal studies, and was the past president of the Law and Society Association. A pretty good discussion thus far on the nature and impact of interdisciplinary work in a rigid discipline like legal studies, but there are moments that made my eyebrow furl. The obvious one is their definition of interdisciplinarity, at least some parts of it is contradictory. On the one hand, it is clear that they are talking about the limits of legal methodology and the problem with defining "culture" as a legal concept. Hence, the use of literary, sociological, anthropological methods that have traditionally dealt with "culture" can be enormously useful as a legal method. On the other hand, there are moments when "culture" is used as a pedagogical tool in legal studies. For example, how I would use various episodes of The Wire to talk about practices of surveillance, containment, and policing. I'm just using these episodes as examples to illustrate theoretical concepts, but, as my partner often tells me, a media studies professor would talk about them in a totally different manner which, of course, furls her eyebrow whenever she reads how other disciplines use film and tv media as teaching tools as opposed to proper objects of analysis. So it's somewhat problematic, yet predictable, on how people think of interdisciplinary work in their respective fields. What I think thus far is that legal studies ought to write against the law, in similar ways that cultural studies write against culture.

More on this when I read further.

Dissertating

Chapter Update: After a concerted effort this past week and a half, I think my chapter is 90% done, and if all goes well, I will meet my deadline. But there is a problem. There was one part of Justice Thomas's dissent about the phrase, "freedom from," reminded me of something I read from awhile ago. Instinctively, I knew it was enormously significant so I went about my library looking for the book, and my notes. The problem was that I couldn't figure out who wrote it. So I spent some hours browsing through the web -- Google Book -- until I finally found it. The book is Michael Clifford's Savage Identities: Political Genealogy After Foucault (2001).

And I lost that book this past year when I moved to Washington, DC.

Doesn't that suck?

Huh? Wha'?

Yes it's been much too long since I've last posted here. That's actually a good thing because I've been productive and writing my chapter and reading more law reviews on Virginia v. Black. At least, I'm trying to fit that in whenever I can on top of teaching classes.

I've been following Tim Hardaway's anti-gay comments and the subsequent outcry which resulted in his banishment from the All-Star weekend in Las Vegas. One in particular, has Charles Barkley not only admonishing Hardaway's comment, but stating that he should've known better. That as an African American and a black man, the history of discrimination, negative stereotypes, and violence should've taught him better than to say something so ignorant and incendiary.

[UPDATE: Yet another video removed for TOS violations.]

I was watching it and to my surprise Barkley seemed like the elder statesman. Well, rough around the edges, but he got the gist of it. Anyways, I came across this clip and consider it as a "different" to the usual public condemnation and subsequent "apology" by Hardaway. It stars George Takei, first shown on the Jimmy Kimmel Show, and I love the fact that it throws the stereotypes back at Hardaway. I think it works quite well.

[UPDATE: Damn this was a good video clip too.]

Dissertating Daze

These past 3 days I was amazingly productive on my last chapter. I read 6 law review articles, 3 court cases, wrote 3 pages for my last chapter, and discovered a better argument to round out my second and third chapter. I'm not surprised considering teaching does take up so much time and energy by itself. As a matter of fact, it was a relief to be away from teaching and focusing on my immediate goal of just finishing my degree.

Oddly enough, at a moment when I am most productive, I'll be taking a short 4 day vacation to New York to visit some friends starting tomorrow. I'm quite excited to go considering I haven't been to New York since I was 4 years old and I barely remember anything. So I guess it'll be all brand new for me. But it feels like an interruption knowing that I'm on a roll and I should take advantage of it while it lasts even though I had planned the trip less than 2 months ago.

Don't get me wrong; I'm very excited to go and I will enjoy my time there. Nothing is easier than to forget about it writing a dissertation. As a matter of fact, there are hundreds of ways to avoid the drudgery of writing and researching. But there's still only one way to actually finish it which is to sit and write.

WTF Rosie?!? Follow-Up

So Rosie O'Donnell finally apologized after a week of what appeared to be some intense pressure from her "ching chong" episode. It was the lamest apology which was obviously done on the spot as she was fumbling over words to describe "Asian people." It sounded more defensive than an apology. But the kicker was when one of the co-stars noticed TWO ASIANS in the crowd. Rosie then asked whether the "ching chong" bit offended them, and they said it did not. It's so damn predictable to turn to a "legitimate source" (i.e., Asians) to demonstrate that the slur wasn't all that bad. That is not the point. The point is that she and others on the cast should've known better not to do it. If you're not going to use homophobic slurs on air, then you better not use any others. But props to The Soup for catching and turning it on it's head. Now that was funny.

Her apology:

[UPDATE: Apparently the clip is not available from YouTube anymore.]

And The Soup's version of it:

WTF Rosie?!?

Just because you are a "liberal" and/or identify with a minority that doesn't excuse you from being an intolerant/racist git towards another. That is hypocrisy plain and simple. And by the way, thanks Rosie for reinscribing a denigrating stereotype on national television. As if we needed your help in maintaing racial prejudice.

Here's the original clip and a pretty decent response:

A Defining Principle ...

I came across this quotation when I was reading Texas v. Johnson (1989), the Supreme Court case that protected flag burning under the First Amendment. Actually, the quotation was originally from Justice Robert Jackson who gave the majority opinion in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943). Justice Jackson later became the chief prosecutor against Nazi war criminals after World War II. His words about free speech are simply elegant.

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.

Sentence: Life in Prison

In my research, I come across numerous cases of hate violence from the physically violent to the emotionally traumatic. But I paid particular attention to this case from last year because of the sheer brutality of the attack. As prosecutor, Mike Trent, said, "this was torture." The perpetrator, who is one seriously screwed up kid, had, among other things, a history of violent behavior in particularly towards Latinos, fascination with Skinheads and neo-Nazis, fantasizes about necrophilia, and hears voices in his head. All of which provided the jury enough reason to sentence him to life in prison.

But what moved me, and it seems so rare in these cases, is how both mothers, both families, embraced and mourned together with the perpetrator's mother apologizing repeatedly for the actions of her son.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4344623.html

WTF?

So apparently Michael Richards, the dude who played Kramer from Seinfeld, went on a venemous racist rampage Friday night when he performed at The Laugh Factory in Los Angeles. And don't give me this "he completely lost it" crap because he knew exactly what he was doing on stage. It started when Richards was heckled by an African American and several of his friends. That's the usual thing in comedy clubs as a form of linguistic sparring. Comedians are known to push the boundaries because that's the nature of the game, but Richards clearly escalated the situation when he dropped the nuclear bomb of all racial epithets. Whenever "the word" is used and you are not African American, then be prepared for some serious repercussions against you. It's completely offensive to African Americans, and to everyone's sensibilities. It's a word that no one else can use except African Americans, and even then it's quite limited.

WARNING: Do not watch if you're easily offended.

CNN follow up:

Halloween in "Da' Hood?"

I've heard of other racially themed Halloween frat parties in the past such as Latino gangs in the "barrios" or Vietnam War themed parties involving US soldiers and "oriental" prostitutes dancing to the beat of "Me So Horny" by 2 Live Crew.

Short of anything illegal, and that's always a topic for debate, whatever you say or do in private is the business of you and your friends. That's going to happen and there's nothing I can do to prevent it. But once it is made public for others to see and hear, especially if it's on the internet, then it's open game. Don't be surprised that a world of anger and criticism is going to be unleashed upon you. And don't cry foul and whine that you didn't know it was offensive. It's too late in my opinion. If you didn't know before, you will now and that's the other "higher education" for you. Original article here:

A campus fraternity set off the debate by using Facebook to publicize a “Halloween in the ‘Hood” party, which described Baltimore as “the HIV pit” and urged partygoers to dress in “regional clothing from our locale” like “bling bling ice ice, grills” and “hoochie hoops,” according to The Baltimore Sun. Because of that language — and because of a prop at the party that featured a skeleton dangling from a rope noose — the university’s Black Student Union objected. Campus officials decided to suspend the fraternity, pending an investigation of the event.

Not Halloween but along the same line is this incident from Texas A&M:

A student-made video that appears to depict a master-slave scene, including a beating and an actor in blackface, has stirred racial tensions to a boil at Texas A&M University at College Station, according to the San Antonio Express-News.

By the way, the president of Texas A&M is Robert Gates who is set to replace Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. He called the video "moronic" but university officials are unclear if it violated any law or campus policy.

UPDATE: I just found out that the fraternity sponsoring the "Halloween in the Hood" party was suspended, and the organizer was of Korean descent. What a damn moron.