The point is simple – clichéd, even.  But this simple point is so often denied in the United States of 2009.  The point is that race matters.  More specifically, race matters in how we interpret the Constitution of the United States.  Debates over the constitution, especially at the Supreme Court, often willfully ignore or obscure the living and continued significance of race and racism.  The racial category you belong to plays a significant part in your life, if you’re an American, but American legal doctrine over the last several decades has refused to accept this fact.

Much as they did during the 1800s, today’s American courts allow entrenched racial discrimination to continue.  Throughout the 19th century and into the 20th, the courts used openly racist thinking to enforce policies like slavery, segregation, and whites-only citizenship.  Today, the courts use colorblindness to brush aside the reality of race and racism.  They overturn and restrict race-conscious policies designed to help alleviate racism faced exclusively by people who are identified as racial and ethnic minorities.  The courts can and should consider the impact of race when it deals with cases like voting rights, sentencing for drug use, law enforcement strategies that roundup random Muslim and Middle Eastern Americans, and the legality of practices and policies that drove nonwhite families into needlessly expensive “subprime” mortgages.  But instead, legal scholars (including a majority of the Supreme Court Justices) regularly disagree with the need even to recognize the mere existence of socially constructed race.

It’s not a coincidence that Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court has already become contentious on the issue of race.  Sotomayor’s views on race and racism are becoming an object of public debate, thanks to coverage by national media (and thanks to well-publicized and ridiculous accusations that Sotomayor is herself “racist”).  Sotomayor’s rulings during her illustrious career show that while she’s hardly a radical, she does favor a reality-based judiciary that understands and considers the impact of race and racism.  Because of this (and in part because she is Latina), she has already faced more questions about race than any other nominee to sit on the Supreme Court than anyone else in quite a long time.  And she hasn’t even sat for confirmation hearings yet.

Before Judge Sotomayor arrives on Capitol Hill for confirmation hearings, I’d like to take a moment to consider why legal scholars argue against recognizing the existence of race in America.  And then let’s consider how the next decade in legal thought might be influenced, thanks to Sotomayor’s presence on the Court.

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The biggest problem in the Middle East are Israeli settlements on Palestinian land.

The settlements are the project of a collection of right wing extremists.  They are homes and roads protected by the mighty Israeli army, strategically placed in and around Palestinian cities, towns, villages, and farmland in such a way as to make Palestinian civilian life uncomfortable.

The settlements cause violence.  Israeli settlers frequently ambush and terrorize their Palestinian neighbors.  Palestinian homes are arbitrarily demolished to make room for settlements.  The settlements’ guardian, the Israeli army, are stationed in Palestinian cities and along Palestinian roads.  Checkpoints, where Palestinians submit to searches, ID checks, and arbitrary arrests, line the roads all along the West Bank, making travel difficult at best.  A massive security barrier snakes across the landscape, in large measure to protect the settlements.  This barrier separates children from schools, farmers from farms, and keeps families apart. 

The settlements are racist, in that they are reserved for the exclusive use of Israeli Jews (Israel’s one million non-Jewish citizens are mostly prevented from living in settlements).

The right wing groups that promote the settlements have exerted a powerful influence on Israeli politics, despite the fact that a majority of Israelis disagree with the settlement project.  The settler movement’s remarkable political power has allowed settlements to expand rapidly in the past few decades.

Despite Israeli government statements that they will curtail settlements, Israeli policy has been to allow settlements to grow.  And this policy is now, finally, under strict scrutiny in the United States.

President Obama has taken a dramatically different approach to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict than any of his predecessors.  Obama’s approach has placed Israeli settlements front and center, where they should be considering that they are the biggest obstacle to peace.

On this thorny issue, the new American president has been masterful.  Obama has managed to isolate the issue of settlements, taking a firm stance and gently but realistically pressing the right wing Israeli government to change its policies.  All the while, Obama has  gathered support for his peace initiative at home in the US and among Arabs and Muslims worldwide.  No American President has been this bold on Middle East peace in a very long time.  Let’s compare Obama with his immediate predecessors before considering the prospects that Obama’s fresh approach will lead to a durable peace.

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It’s the 2009 Stanley Cup Finals, and the beard is back!

The Red Wings are locked in a rematch of last year’s Finals, and we’re expecting a similar result.  The Penguins’ best player defected to the Wings last year, and chances are this year Mr. Hossa will be very happy to show his old team how it’s done.

Of course, for me this is a difficult series, since I’m actually surrounded by Pennsylvanians and assorted Penguins fans.  But don’t worry, folks, I’ll hold my Wings flag high.

Prediction: Wings in 4.

I’ll be recapping each game as it happens right here, so set your bookmarks. [Read the rest of this article →]

(This story also appears at New Racial Studies.)

Last week, Assistant US Attorney Eric Snyder was quoted giving the money line from the latest War on Terror press release, saying, “It’s hard to envision a more chilling plot.”  He’s right.  It’s hard to imagine something more frightening than the US government conspiring, over and over again, to make petty criminals or people who overstay their visas look like terrorist masterminds for public relations purposes.  But that’s what’s going on.

The pattern goes something like this.  The FBI and other law enforcement agencies plant an informant in a targeted group, like at a mosque or an advocacy organization.  The informant is often under pressure after getting in trouble for immigration or drugs charges, and the FBI offers the informant a way to avoid deportation or jail by working instead as a confidential snitch.  Surely, the FBI will be asking the informant to produce results.  So, the informant looks hard for terrorists.  Sometimes, the informant even engages in provocation – asking around about people who would join in a terrorist operation.  Once anyone at the targeted group (even mentally challenged people) start talking about blowing up a building, the informant works to help set up meetings with undercover FBI agents to provide fake “explosives” and other equipment for the fake “operation.”  Once the fake “operation” gets underway, the uniforms and police cars show up to slap handcuffs.  And there’s a big press conference to announce the arrest of dangerous, dangerous terrorists.  Only, once the charges make it to a court of law, they fizzle.  But, by then, no one is paying attention, so as far as the FBI, xenophobic commentators and elected officials are concerned, they’ve got a big success in the War on Terror on the books.  We saw this pattern with a 2004 case in Detroit, when trumped-up terrorism chargers were thrown out by a judge after “terrorist surveillance photos” turned out to be vacation pictures from Disneyland.  We saw a variation on this theme with Jose Padilla, who was originally charged with plotting a radioactive dirty bomb attack, but those charges were later dropped for lack of evidence.

The common thread in this pattern?  Muslim Americans.  Muslim Americans are targeted by the FBI, entrapped in these bogus terrorism plots, and then they are trotted before the cameras for PR purposes.  That’s what happened last week in New York.

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This article also appears at New Racial Studies.

Yesterday, President Obama released the “Torture Memos,” a set of previously top secret documents that justified the use of torture by American interrogators.  These memos, authored by top Bush administration officials, argued that certain “techniques” – including forced stress positions, throwing prisoners against a wall, and water torture – do not qualify as torture.  These memos served as the basis for allowing American interrogators to commit acts of torture.

In a written statement, President Obama said that “it is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution.”

I had the opportunity to meet Captain James Yee yesterday, just after the President made these disclosures.  Yee served as the US Muslim Chaplain at Guantanamo Bay prison, where he met with prisoners who described harsh treatment at the hands of American interrogators, treatment that Yee believes constitute torture.  Yee was also held without charge in solitary confinement in a Navy brig for some 76 days, after being falsely accused of spying during his work at Guantanamo Bay.  After all charges against him were dropped, the Army has since recognized him with several awards.  Yee resigned his commission and was honorably discharged in 2005.

I asked Chaplain Yee for his reaction to President Obama’s decision not to prosecute Americans who may have tortured.  “I don’t necessarily agree” with Obama’s decision, Yee said.  “I understand the political considerations” the President has to make, he said.  But Yee emphasized that the excuse “I was only following orders” should not be a defense.  Obama’s statement which seems to exonerate US agents who acted with a “good faith belief” that their actions were legal sounds a lot like the “only following orders” defense, Yee explained.  Overall, Yee said, “To me, it seems like not the right thing to do.”

Yee was an delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 2008, where he cast a ballot for Obama’s nomination.  He supported Obama in large part because of his campaign promise to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay.

I met Chaplain Yee at Dickinson College, where he was speaking at an event sponsored by the Dickinson College chapters of the Muslim Student Association, Amnesty International, and Campus Democrats.

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