Reconcilable dilemma.  As a college professor, I indirectly pay my mortgage, buy groceries, put gas in my car, and otherwise provide for my family [in part] on the backs of indebted college students who are drowning in student loans and increasingly struggling to find satisfactory employment.  Students for whom the rate of return of a college degree is decreasing.  Higher education (in public universities) should be FREE.  “Free” like public elementary and high schools that are financed mostly by the State via property taxes, etc.  I am not referring to MOOCs (massive open online courses), I mean zero tuition for traditional face-to-face classroom higher education.  20k, 30k, even 40k a year at a public university does not make it “public,” it makes it “impossible” for most.

Taxpayer costs per year (per inmate) in state prisons in California is about $47,000, Illinois is $38,000, New York is $60,000, and so on.  Costs of attendance at the Univ. of Illinois-Urbana this year is $29,500.  I KNOW there are all sorts of issues with this commonly made false equivalence.  And, I don’t want bad guys roaming the streets.  But damn, could college students at least get an interest free loan?  It is about priorities; i.e., government investment in corrections and decreasing support for higher education.  Prison for inmates is “free.”  Public higher education should also be free for qualified students…even French Lit majors.

I’m rethinking my use of the term “black on black” crime.  For the last few weeks some have complained there is too much [disproportionate] attention on the Trayvon Martin murder and not enough on the day-to-day murder of blacks and browns; especially in Chicago.  Could it be that the media simply does not lend itself as heavily to so-called “black-on-black” crime?  Show me one poll that suggests citizens in these communities are NOT outraged!  The media and others’ use the therm “black-on-black” to suggest a relative “unimportant” of such murders.  Have you ever heard the term “white-on-white” crime?  If not, then “black-on-black” is perhaps inherently racist.  “Black-on-Black” and “gang related” are terms that operate often to minimize and routinize the senseless killings of minority youth.  The media refrain “black-on-black” sets these crimes apart from “real” murders and categorizes them in a fashion that often trivializes them and makes them appear less newsworthy. 

Elsewhere [on facebook]  I wrote “Zimmerman was found innocent of the charges.”  A former student replied “Zimmerman wasn’t found innocent. There is no such finding made by American courts. He was found not guilty…”  From my social science perspective as a social being with emotions and a warm heart (not just academic training) this is a distinction without a difference. The technical and real distinctions between “innocent” and “not guilty” are often no more than legal fallacies that disingenuous lawyers (courts and judges) tout like the distinctions between de facto and de jure discrimination, or, between strict scrutiny and rational relationship. These are labels we use to help make the system work. There is a presumption that one is innocent until proven guilty; however, if not proven guilty does one not retain their presumption of innocence? As one trained in the law, you must accept your rules that juries don’t find one innocent. The burden of proof is on the prosecution to establish beyond doubt that one is guilty. So, if the prosecution fails this task, the person is not guilty of the charges. To me, this means they retain their presumed innocence. All of this is rubbish, semantic legalese we use to justify our political-legal decision making processes. My academic training tells me that Zimmerman was found not guilty, but my humanity tells me he was found innocent of the charges. I trust my humanity.

Sometimes I write nuanced posts assuming readers will magically know what I mean. The intent of my July 15 posting of various hundred+ year-old laws that required the on-the-spot murder of innocent African-Americans by ordinary citizens was to chastise those among us who in various ways justify the Zimmerman verdict relying on the “law” and/or the judge’s instructions. The “law,” more specifically the laws in play in the Zimmerman trial are not edicts from some supreme supernatural power; they are a reflection of the Florida legislature and voting citizens. Laws that promote private handgun ownership, concealed carry, stand your ground, etc., (many of which are heavily influenced by powerful gun lobbies) are reflections of social norms and/or powerful and influential special interests. Given the laws in many states, and the instructions given to juries on self-defense and “reasonable doubt” it was unlikely Zimmerman would be convicted. But laws are not sacred. It was also the “law” that denied black people the use of most public facilities; the opportunity to eat in restaurants; rent hotel rooms; vote; or attend public schools. It is also the law that provides the road map and justifications for black males being disproportionately arrested, tried, and convicted on drug crimes despite the fact that proportionally speaking, Blacks no more than whites, and whites no more than blacks, commit drug crimes. It is also the law that denies same sex couples equal rights, and that increasing denies women control of their own bodies.  So, applying Florida self-defense laws (including the stand your ground provision) does not convince me that justice is served. Sadly, on many issues of race (and gender) in America, the “law” is no defense against injustice. The history of racial animus by some against black and brown people in the United States, the impact of gun laws and urban gang violence, coupled with other laws like stand-your-ground that operate to embolden racial profiling suggests that increasingly there is no place for black men to live, nowhere, no community, no neighborhood, that our innocent black sons are not more likely than everyone else in this county to be profiled, stopped and frisked, demonized, followed, stalked, devalued, terrorized, killed with impunity and denied the protection of the criminal justice system.

“If any [Black] slave resists his master and by the extremity of the correction, chance to die, his death shall not be a felony, since it cannot be presumed that malice (which makes murder a felony) would induce a man to destroy his own estate.” [Act VIII, Virginia 1669]

“Whereas the frequent meetings of considerable numbers of Negro slaves under pretense of feasts and burials is judged of dangerous consequence, it is enacted that no Negro or slave may carry arms, such as any club, staff, gun, sword, or other weapon, nor go from his owner’s plantation without a certificate and then only on necessary occasions; the punishment twenty lashes on the bare back, well laid on. And, further, if any Negro lift up his hand against any Christian he shall receive thirty lashes, and if he absent himself or lie out from his master’s service and resist lawful apprehension, he may be killed and this law shall be published every six months.” [Virginia, Act X]

“If any slave resist his master, or owner, or other person, by his or her order, correcting such slave, and shall happen to be killed in such correction, it shall not be accounted a felony; but the master, owner, and every such other person so giving correction, shall be free and acquit of all punishment and accusation for the same, as if the accident had never happened.” [Act XXXIV Virginia, 1705].

A 1712 South Carolina law required “negroes or slaves” to carry passes, but also obligated every white person to apprehend and punish (beat, maim, assault or kill if necessary) slaves encountered without a pass: …no master, mistress, overseer, or other person whatsoever, that hath the care and charge of any negro or slave, shall give their negroes and other slaves leave, … without a ticket, or leave in writing, from his master or mistress, or some other person by his or her appointment, or some white person in the company of such slave, to give an account of his business, [negro or slave] shall be whipped; and every person who shall not (when in his power,) apprehend every negro or other slave which he shall see out of his master’s plantation, without leave as aforesaid, and after apprehended, shall, neglect to punish him by moderate whipping, shall forfeit twenty shillings, the one half to the poor, to be paid to the church wardens of the Parish… and the other half to him that will inform for the same, …And for the better security of all such persons that shall endeavor to take any runaway, or shall examine any slave for his ticket, passing to and from his master’s plantation, it is hereby declared lawful for any white person to beat, maim or assault, and if such negro or slave cannot otherwise be taken, to kill him, who shall refuse to show his ticket, or, by running away or resistance, shall endeavor to avoid being apprehended or taken.

Section XVII of the 1712 act provided: …if any negro or slave whatsoever, shall offer any violence to any christian or white person, by striking, or the like, such negro or other slave, for his or her first offence, … shall be severely whipped, … for the second offence… he shall be severely whipped, and his nose slit, or be burned in some part of his face with a hot iron, …and for the third offence, … death, or any other punishment… And in case any negro or slave shall so assault and beat any white person, by which the said white person is maimed and disabled, in such case, the slave shall be punished as in the third offence…”

The 1735 statute, for example, made it lawful to kill “on the spot” any slave that resisted any white person with a stick or weapon: III. And for the better security of all such persons who at any time shall endeavor to take any runaway slaves, or that shall examine any slave or slaves for his or their ticket when seen out of his or their master’s or mistress’s plantation, It is hereby declared lawful for any white person to beat, maim, or assault any slave who endeavors to avoid such white person by running away; and if any such slave shall resist with a stick or other instrument or weapon, then it shall and may be lawful to kill any slave or slaves so resisting.

A South Carolina Act (1740) additionally required that any slave resisting examination by striking a white person (without a weapon) may be lawfully killed on the spot without the need for any judicial determination: …any slave who shall be out of the house or plantation…or without some white person in company with such slave, [who] shall refuse to submit to or undergo the examination of any white person, it shall be lawful for any such white person to pursue, apprehend, and moderately correct such slave; and if any such slave shall assault and strike such white person, such slave may be lawfully killed.