Race

Unethical Quote Of The Month: The Democratic National Committee

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

blm

“[T]he DNC joins with Americans across the country in affirming ‘Black lives matter’ and the ‘say her name’ efforts to make visible the pain of our fellow and sister Americans as they condemn extrajudicial killings of unarmed African-American men, women and children.”

—-The Democratic National Committee, in a resolution passed last week endorsing #Black Lives Matter”

You think that having Donald Trump running (temporarily and momentarily) as a front-runner in the race for the 2016  Republican Presidential nomination is embarrassing for Republicans? That’s nothin’! The official endorsement of the racist, violence-promoting, anti-police and anti-rule of law movement Black Lives Matter ought to disqualify the Democratic Party as a trustworthy political organization until it stops pandering and apologizes for this statement.

Black Lives Matter is a racist, anti-white, hate-fueled organization that considers any law enforcement involving black criminals presumptively racist. The movement continues to rely on false and discredited media and activist narratives (“Hands up! Don’t shoot!”), citing “victims” like Michael Brown as the justification for its existence, presuming guilt in cases where the facts are uncertain or in legitimate dispute (Eric Garner was not “choked to death,” nor was he intentionally killed; Sonny Gray’s death is still unexplained; there is no evidence that Tamir Rice’s death was related to race). The primary result of the group’s efforts so far have been to increase racial tensions, to spark deadly attacks on police officers, and to cause a catastrophic rise in urban murders as police avoid proactive methods and stops involving black suspects to avoid becoming the next Darren Wilson. Continue reading →

The Nurturing Of Race Hate, Part Two: The Daniele Watts Saga

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

daniele-watts

Last September, African-American actress Daniele Watts (“Django Unchained”) engaged in lewd, if non-felonious, public conduct, then exploited the tensions arising out of Ferguson to claim victim status, police harassment and race prejudice. When the police were exonerated by the recording of her arrest and she was ordered to apologize by a judge (and asked to apologize by civil rights leaders, who were embarrassed after they rallied to her support only to find that she had played the race card without  justification), she failed—twice—to deliver a sincere apology. She is defiant and intoxicated by her martyrdom, another young African American who has been convinced of her entitlement to be an anti-white racist.

To appreciate the tale, we have to go back to September 11, 2014, when the actress and her white boyfriend, a “celebrity chef,” were visibly engaged in sexual conduct in their car in broad daylight on an LA street. Neighbors complained—we have not yet reached the point where rutting in public is legal and acceptable, but give progressives time—and police responded. Naturally, as this was at the height of the Ferguson controversy, the news media immediately reported the story as more police harassment of black citizens, this time for “kissing while black.” Here’s a typical account from  September 14: Continue reading →

Comment of the Day #1: Ethics Quiz: The Looney Tunes Cartoon Disclaimer

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

coonsongs

The Looney Tunes post was the latest in along line of those that I never anticipated provoking the rich discussions that they have, and this fascinating post by SamePenn really took off into an unexpected direction—ragtime and racist songs—that is  still relevant to the post. Just read, enjoy, ponder and learn; I did.

Here is SamePenn’s Comment of the Day, and there’s a second COTD coming,  on the post, Ethics Quiz: The Looney Tunes Cartoon Disclaimer: Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: The Looney Tunes Cartoon Disclaimer

/ Jack Marshall / 63 Comments

Warner Brothers Warning

Above is the disclaimer shown at the beginning of each DVD in the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 4, Volume 5, and Volume 6 sets, as well as the Daffy Duck and Foghorn Leghorn Looney Tunes Super Stars sets and the Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Academy Awards Animation Collection:

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day:

Is the warning that introduces the Warner Brothers classic cartoon videos fair and responsible?

Continue reading →

Ethics Heroes: 64% Of African-Americans. There Is Hope!

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

black-lives-matter

From The Hill:

Two out of three black people prefer the term “all lives matter” to “black lives matter,” according to a Rasmussen poll released Thursday. Only 31 percent of black people surveyed said that the statement “black lives matter” most closely comports to their own beliefs, compared to 64 percent who chose “all lives matter.”Seventy-eight percent of total respondents also chose “all lives matter,” including 81 percent of white and 76 percent of minority respondents, according to the poll.

Now that is genuinely good news, and after the last couple Ethics Alarms posts, I bet you needed some.

Quick, you pandering, pusillanimous, finger-in-the-air, weak-kneed, race-baiting politicians like Martin O’Malley—better retract those apologies for not flagging down the racist #BlackLivesMatter train to board fast enough…at least until the next poll, then you can flip again.

___________________________
Pointer: Instapundit.

Unethical Op-Ed Of The Month, Or Maybe All Time: Theodore R. Johnson In The Washington Post

/ Jack Marshall / 50 Comments
Well, at least that would explain it...

Well, at least that would explain it…

The essay is titled, “We used to count black Americans as 3/5 of a person. For reparations, give them 5/3 of a vote.” Yes, it’s serious. There is so much wrong with it logically, ethically, historically, legally, and Constitutionally, that it would take more words, time and effort to fully rebut all the nonsense in the article than this oddity is worth. Go ahead, read it. If your first reaction is, “Hey! What a brilliant idea!,” it’s time to seek professional help, and I don’t care what color you are.

Rather than give this perverted, anti-democratic fantasy the dignity of a rebuttal, I’ll just offer a few observations: Continue reading →

KABOOM! University Of Wisconsin Director Of Community Relations Says That Arresting Shoplifters Is Over-Policing

/ Jack Marshall / 41 Comments

exploding-head3

This story made my cranium explode like Krakatoa, and it really scared my dog. If it doesn’t make your head explode, I am worried about you. I’m worried about you anyway. I’m worried about all of us.

UW Director of Community Relations Everett Mitchell, speaking at a University of Wisconsin Madison panel dealing with “Best Policing Practices,” argued that police should stop responding to shoplifting and thefts at Wal-Mart and Target in order to reduce what he refers to as “over policing” of the community. Yes, he really believes that enforcing the law regarding property crimes against retailers is “over-policing.”  Mitchell, an employee of an institution that exists to enlighten the young and impressionable, said that communities should be able to decide for themselves what laws should be enforced, and that  the ultimate goal of law enforcement is not the actual enforcement of law, but community safety as defined by the community itself. If the community thinks declaring open season on the local Walmart—looting, essentially—is just fine, then the police shouldn’t arrest anyone for it.  Theft from big box stores, he explained, is an example of a crime that police and the community may view differently.

How the owner of the stores that get robbed, the employees that will lose jobs when the store leaves to relocate someplace that doesn’t think theft is “safe,” and the families that will have no place to shop might feel about his plan was not discussed. Mitchell, you see, is an irresponsible idiot.

He was also formerly an assistant District Attorney in the Dane County District Attorney’s Office. He must have been great at that job.

Mitchell said, Continue reading →

Clarence Darrow, in 1926, On Why Black Lives Matter

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments
The all white Detroit jury that acquitted Dr. Sweet.

The all white Detroit jury that acquitted Dr. Sweet.

When I referred to Clarence Darrow’s support for terrorist John Brown in the previous post, I reviewed other references to the great trial lawyer that have appeared here. (As you may know, I authored a one-man play about Darrow, still performed to legal groups by actor (and my friend) Paul Morella, and with historian Ed Larson compiled selections from Darrow’s writings, court appearances and speeches, The Essential Words and Writings of Clarence Darrow.) I have also posted on his famous Leopold and Loeb argument against capital punishment, but I was shocked to find out that I never posted any part of his closing argument in the murder trial of Dr. Sweet.  I need to remedy that omission now. That courtroom oratory is not only the best of Darrow’s closing arguments, but also the most relevant to current events. It is a masterpiece, and  also astonishingly prescient and wise.

In 1925, Dr. Henry Ossian Sweet, a black man, moved his family into a house in a previously segregated section of Detroit. Mobs of whites gathered outside the house with torches, clubs and guns the first two nights of their residence, as police stood by passively. On the second night, a gunshot coming from the house killed one of the demonstrators, and all 11 residents of the home, including Dr. Sweet, were charged with murder. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People hired Clarence Darrow to handle the defense.

There were two trials, the first ending in a hung jury. In the second, Darrow performed a seven hour closing argument, aspects of which have inspired homages in “To Kill A Mockingbird” and “A Time to Kill.” Despite the all-white jury, Dr. Sweet was acquitted, and the charges against the others were dropped. Darrow isn’t a legend for nothing.

I have left out the parts of the closing argument that recount the testimony and the facts of the case: you can read about the trials on Doug Linder’s excellent website, and you can read Darrow’s whole closing here. This redacted version focuses on Darrow comments about race and race relations. It is longer than the version we used in the play, but this is the version I would have used if audiences could tolerate a three hour one man show.

I continue to believe that this was the high point of Darrow’s incredible career, and also one of the most impressive—and gutsy—speeches in our history. Only Clarence Darrow would challenge an all-white jury like this in 1925. It is also unbearably moving. Paul, when he performs the selection, ends with tears streaming down his face, as Darrow did. You might too. Try reading it aloud to your kid. Or to yourself.

This post also relates to another recent post, the one about jury nullification. That is really what Darrow is arguing here, in the context of confronting racial injustice and bigotry for the survival of the nation and society. The white victim of the shooting was shot in the back. Darrow, at one point, calls it murder himself. Nonetheless, he argues that acquitting Sweet and his family is the right thing to do, whatever the law says.

Here is my abridged version of the epic closing argument made by Clarence Darrow, May 11, 1926, in defense of Dr. Sweet and his family.

Continue reading →

Suggested Journalism Ethics Rule For The Washington Post: If You Want To Publish Race Hate, Anti-American Op-Ed Pieces,At Least Insist That They Don’t Misrepresent The Facts.

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Is that too much to ask?

Sunday last,  the Washington Posts’s Outlook section included an anti-American diatribe against police and whites by a California public defender named Raha Jorjani. I know there are black racists that see the world, law enforcement and government as he does, and there is nothing wrong or irresponsible in the Post allowing such screeds to see the light of day in its pages—all the better to expose them. I would feel better if the equivilent racist bile from the white side was not treated differently, but I tire of pointing out this double standard, at least right now.

But no editor should allow such a piece to include factual distortions on the scale of the opening paragraph, which begins,

Suppose a client walked into my office and told me that police officers in his country had choked a man to death over a petty crime. Suppose he said police fatally shot another man in the back as he ran away. That they arrested a woman during a traffic stop and placed her in jail, where she died three days later. That a 12-year-old boy in his country was shot and killed by the police as he played in the park.

Suppose he told me that all of those victims were from the same ethnic community — a community whose members fear being harmed, tortured or killed by police or prison guards. And that this is true in cities and towns across his nation. At that point, as an immigration lawyer, I’d tell him he had a strong claim for asylum protection under U.S. law.

What if, next, he told me he was from America? Black people in the United States face such racial violence that they could qualify as refugees.

The short and well-earned response to his last sentence is “Bullshit.” Before one can even get to his offensive and absurd (and paranoia-seeding: the lawyer must regard it as good for business) thesis, the utter dishonesty of his premises disqualify the op-ed for serious consideration, as well as raise question about the way this guy would practice law. If that is how he represents facts in court, he won’t be a lawyer long: Continue reading →

Out Of 199 Quotes, 40 That Reveal Donald Trump’s Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments
Slogging through 199 Donald Trump quotes is too much for anyone to endure. Here are the 40 that matter...

Slogging through 199 Donald Trump quotes is too much for anyone to endure. Here are 40 that matter…

I don’t like or trust the technique of cherry-picking quotes from famous people to make them sound stupid, venal, mean or distasteful. First of all, the technique has been  abused by the news media, which uses it against people like Sarah Palin and Dan Quayle, but seldom digs up quotes to embarrass the leaders and political figures they like and support. Many liberal icons—Barney Frank comes to mind—talk so incessantly that it would be easy to make them sound like monsters or fools using the technique, but if it is done to these people at all, it is done by ideological blogs with minimal exposure. Second, those who make such lists often cheat, taking quotes out of context, or worse, making them up. Many lists designed to show that Sarah Palin is an idiot, for example (she is many things, but idiot is not among them) use lines actually said by Tina Fay while lampooning Palin.

Michael Kruse’s feature for Politico called “The 199 Most Donald Trump Things Donald Trump Has Ever Said”, however, deserves a bit more deference. After all, he appears to have waded through a putrid swamp of Trump interviews, books, and videos, which probably left him drooling and giggling in a corner some place; I’ll be relieved when I see evidence that he’s OK. That task took courage, dedication and endurance: attention must be paid. Moreover, this isn’t the usual list of ten or twenty quotes: you could make Stephen Hawking  seem like a dolt in twenty quotes if you chose them maliciously. This is 199. Impressive.

Also horrifying. In selecting the 199 juiciest and most provocative quotes from any prominent American, wouldn’t you expect at least one that was articulate, thoughtful, wise or memorable? I’m not looking for Samuel Butler here, or even Barack Obama, but for someone who is at least for the nonce a “serious” candidate for the highest office in the land, it would be reassuring to find some evidence of wit, perspective, reflection, or a vocabulary beyond that of a typical 8th grader, and it just isn’t there. Has Trump  read any literature? Has he ever seen a play? Is he capable of a relevant famous quote or a cultural reference (saying that Bette Midler is “grotesque” doesn’t count, though “grotesque” may be the most sophisticated word that appears on the list)? If so, there is no hint of it. Maybe Kruse intentionally left out quotes that would reflect well on Trump, and omitted utterances like “I suppose there’s a melancholy tone at the back of the American mind, a sense of something lost. And it’s the lost world of Thomas Jefferson. It is the lost sense of innocence that we could live with a very minimal state, with a vast sense of space in which to work out freedom” (George Will) or “When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators” (P.J. O’Roarke) or even“Our political differences, now matter how sharply they are debated, are really quite narrow in comparison to the remarkably durable national consensus on our founding convictions.” (John McCain). I doubt it.

There are three Trump bon mots in the 199 that barely justify quoting, like  #57: Continue reading →