Seventeen year-old Kiwi Camara uses the word "nigs" to refer to African Americans as an unusually young Harvard law student. He later apologizes, and denies that he harbors ill feelings towards African Americans. Several years later, editors at the Yale Law Journal, unaware of his controversial past, offer to publish an article he wrote in a symposium issue, and later invite him to speak at the relevant symposium. When the "community" discovers Camara's past, all hell breaks loose at Yale, with outraged students arguing that a moral reprobate like Camara should not be allowed to publish in the hallowed Journal, much less speak in Yale's hallowed halls. Camara apologizes again, unequivocally. (See previous VC coverage by Eugene here.) Nevertheless, mass meetings, protests, etc. ensue, culminating last Friday when 1/3 of the symposium audience walked out on Camara's talk.
By contrast, when I was a Yale Law student, the Law Journal accepted an article by convicted murderer Mumia Abu-Jamal, who is, as Stuart Taylor summed it up in 1995, "probably an unrepentant killer who on December 9, 1981, stood over 26-year-old Daniel Faulkner and put a bullet between his eyes while the already wounded officer lay helpless on his back." (For even more certainty on the issue, see here and here, among other sources.] You can find the article at 100 Yale L.J. 993 (1991). As far as I can recall, the only student outrage I witnessed over this publication was some grumbling by a few Federalist Society types. (The Journal, of which I was a member, did receive a fair number of outraged letters from alumni and others who had read about the controversy elsewhere.)
Granted, the law students who currently attend Yale are not the same people as the students who attended Yale in 1991, and are not responsible to the indifference displayed in 1991 to the Journal publishing a convicted murderer's work. It's possible that the students who have been outraged over Camara would have been even more outraged over Abu-Jamal, but given the left-wing orthodoxy [which holds Abu Jamal is an innocent "political prisoner"] that has long pervaded the most activist element of the Yale Law student body, I sincerely doubt it.
Not surprisingly, I don't look to the Yale Law student body as my moral compass.
1) Mumia Abu-Jamal was, as you note, tried and convicted and I take it sentenced for his offense. In short, he was punished. Camara was not.
2) Mumia Abu-Jamal's actions were violent nearly to the point of inhumanity. I don't doubt that the friends and family of Officer Faulkner are deeply and justifiably upset. I find his actions horrific. But I think it is understandable that an African American student would be more personally offended by the use of the word "nigs" than by a murder of someone with no apparent relation to themselves.
3) I think the basic premise of your post is that Abu-Jamal is more morally blameworthy than Camara. Even ignoring the two points above in assessing that, I'm not certain it can be readily assumed that moral blameworthiness is the rubric for guiding either the protesters or the ultimate decision.
1. Public condemnation already served. How many years should someone wear the letter for stupid words he used as a seventeen year old?
2. I don't find it reasonable at all that someone thinks words or cartoons are worth more than an innocent life.
Really? And by "worth more" I take it you mean, as I had said, "more personally offen[sive]"?
How about a third world child starving and someone calling your mother an extremely derogatory name in front of you, your father, her parents and a kindergarten class? Which do you think a typical person finds more offensive?
On the other hand, here's, I think, a tough question: Don't you use similar thought-criminalization rhetoric against those you deem anti-semites? Maybe I'm wrong, but it strikes me as not entirely dissimilar.
Southern white male that I am, I'm quite conscious that if I used the term in question, in public, about black people, there are quarters in which I would *never* be forgiven. C'est la vie.
The Yale LJ was right to (implicitly) forgive Camara's conduct. The students who objected certainly had the right to do so, and I'm pleased that they walked out rather than shouting him down, etc. I hope that when they're older &wiser, they have a bit more tolerance for human frailty.
Well yes. Do you doubt that?
When a person kills an officer, it is usually not just the friends and family that are upset, it is the community that officer was protecting when he/she died in the line of duty. If a killer has no problems killing an officer, then a civilian won't mean much either.
As far as Camara being punished, exactly what punishment is justified? If you want to talk relatively, does Camara have to be jailed like Mumia in order to be sufficiently punished? Otherwise, I would think being condemned at two law schools for several years for the use of a word, for which a person has admitted guilt and sorrow, is some form of punishment.
Finally, why is it only understandable for an African American student to be personally offended by the use of the word "nigs"? I realize I'm talking out the comparison to murder, but judging by the responses at both colleges, I think the word was offensive across racial demographics.
No, I don't doubt that. I don't know it for a fact but, from what I understand, I think it a very good assumption.
But I do doubt "that moral blameworthiness is the rubric for guiding either the protesters or the ultimate decision." If you don't, perhaps you could tell me why you don't?
This whole flap connects back to the biggest problem in today's discourse: people are too lazy to really consider the content of other's people arguments. It's much easier for someone to see the word "nig" and flip the "RACIST!" speech than it is to, say, dissect a lengthy academic paper denouncing Israel and do the same. Aside from this one incident, to my knowledge at least, Camara has done nothing to suggest he is, when actually THINKING (as opposed to just transcribing), a racist. Maybe the Yalies should try to think a little bit more themselves.
I think your post offered more expansive ways in which both actions affected the broader community. I agree both that the broader community is impacted by cop killings and that more than just African Americans are affected by racist remarks at the expense of African Americans. I do think it's safe to say that both African Americans and the family of Officer Faulkner are more directly affected by the two actions, respectively. And, of course, I suppose I was being a bit narrow in my depiction, to prove the point that African American law students are substantially more impacted by one than the other. This may be true of Caucasian students as well. This may also be untrue of African American students with specific connections to the damage done by cop-killing. But I think it's likely defensible as a generalization about individual impact.
We hear in his defense that he was a "very young" for a fascist propaganda minister, so we should cut him some slack...
I was at HLS with Kiwi and don't believe him to be a racist. I do think Mr. Taliban is a monster though - so why are the yalies rallying around him? Oh, that's right, they hate America (sort of just kidding, what possible excuse do they have though?)... =)
Perhaps I'm incorrect in my recollection of the incident, but I believe Camara electively posted his notes on a listserve or a shared website or something like that.
I don't believe Camara had his notes secretly exposed - I think it was more than your average case of vaguely provocative notes vernacular. I think there was some expectation that other people would see them, but I might be remembering incorrectly.
Out of curiousity, is the primary articulated reason for not publishing the Mumia piece - is it an objection about respect for the victim's family, an objection about punishment, a little of both, did the YLJ do it for publicity - I'm not entirely clear.
Thanks.
If moral blame blameworthiness is not the guiding principle behind the protestors, then what is? The protestors simply regard Camara as having committed an unforgivable transgression. Young people, particularly those who have attended elite schools, have been subjected to an unremitting barrage of guilt about race over the last 20 years. My daughter has complained to me many times that her high school teachers, college teachers, and even law professors are constantly trying to make her feel guilty for being a white person. This climate has produced a super sensitivity about race.
Someone who is aware of both the remote death and the personal insult has serious moral issues and lack of perspective if they call the personal insult more offensive. Perhaps people are ignorant of such remote injuries, but that is not the situation you described. If someone makes racial slurs to my face, I might be offended and not really thinking about starving children in Bangladesh or imprisoned families in North Korea. But when I'm informed of those other events I cannot reasonably say that I'm more offended by words than those miseries of humanity. I do not need to visit North Korea or know the slain police officer to make my moral comparison.
And incidentally, to whatever extent you should be willing to withhold moral judgment on a teenager that did something like Camara did, you should be willing to withhold some judgment for the Yale students who engaged in the protest. Incidentally, that was a "you" addressed to nobody in particular.
Abu is a murderer, Camara was just a kid saying something stupid.
Taking the subject out of this context, as so many have, is absurd.
We're comparing cold blooded murder to a 17 year old lacking discretion. C'mon.
And the only worth the writing of someone like Abu might have is in the context of his being the subject of psychoanalytical study. To do otherwise is to somehow grant his actions and views with credibility. The difference being that of reading MeinKampf as view of a madman, or as a credible source for cultural diversity.
Your response to my request to "perhaps... tell me why you don't [doubt moral blameworthiness is the motivating factor]?" appears to have been to simply ask me what else it would be.
Needless to say, that's not a very persuasive answer, if it can even be called an 'answer.' I think I've played fair about answering questions asked of me; I'd like you to do the same.
But, in the words of the immortal Christopher Walkin in 'Suicide Kings', "okay, Brett, have it your way."
1. Moral blameworthiness isn't even the only plausible criminological answer. How about: deterrence. I think it can be safely assumed that denying a legal author publication is a more effective way to ensure that future authors don't say "nigs" or other offensive comments in outlines (or just don't put them on the Student Senate website) than that future authors don't murder police officers or engage in other violent crimes. Isn't Camara's offense, though less morally blameworthy, both more common and probably (from what I know) more deliberate?
2. Criminological certainty. And I know I'm making no friends with this point, but don't we actually know with greater certainty that Camara did what he's accused of? I don't think I need to delve into crime and race here. Isn't it just sufficient to say that Camara admits it and admits its wrongness? This can even make Mumia MORE blameworthy but Camara's offense more certain as well.
Now, some non-criminological explanations...
1. Intellectual elitism. Did it ever occur to any of you Yale-bashers that maybe the Yalies just expect a lot more out of Camara the wunderkind than Mumia the jailbird? Perhaps an odd point to make considering they're both able enough to publish in the YLJ, but still...
2. Recruitment. What if, whatever their moral blameworthiness, students estimated that Camara would more dramatically impact the prestige of Yale Law or even just harm minority recruitment more than Mumia?
These are four, not necessarily wholly plausible, but reasonably amusing possibilities. I can think of more if pressed, I suppose, but would much rather hear from someone else on why the assumption that moral blameworthiness is the motivating factor is a good one.
Lastly, I must confess that, even as a white male from arelatively affluent and loving upbringing, I have little sympathy for the burden placed on your daughter in having to hear ("constantly"? What classes does she take??) about white privilege. Sorry, just how I roll.
"Someone who is aware of both the remote death and the personal insult has serious moral issues and lack of perspective if they call the personal insult more offensive. Perhaps people are ignorant of such remote injuries, but that is not the situation you described. If someone makes racial slurs to my face, I might be offended and not really thinking about starving children in Bangladesh or imprisoned families in North Korea."
Awareness and ignorance are not really the same thing as "not really thinking" about something, is it? I find it a little difficult to swallow that people, anyone, really, is ignorant to problems like starvation, war, etc. Yet they sure act really upset when you call them a bad name, don't they? I suppose when you stub your toe, you say, "but some people don't even have toes...."
Flippant remarks aside, I should just confess my sense of offensiveness and my sense of moral blameworthiness are not so singularly united that I don't get angry at things that upset me personally but are insignificant to the global community. You're a better man than me, I guess.
Has anyone heard of a Dean intentionally walking out on on a speaker who was invited to present an academic paper at his law school? Supporting the right to protest is one thing: Dissing the presentation of an academic paper to score a political point seems like another. But maybe not to Harold Koh.
stella!
It would be enough for me to walk out on any meeting that one of them were to address.
Which is more morally blameworthy? Inviting a recently-exposed racist into your journal pages and onto your campus (when you will not do so for others, such as a discriminatory employer) or protesting that speaker (when you have not done so with others, such as a cop-killer)?
Cheers,
Mackey
i'm not trying to be obnoxious when i say this, but i think it's not inane precisely because some people think it isn't.
I think your point is well-taken too. We're not talking about who is more morally blameworthy, we're talking about what was the more journalistically appropriate course of action. That's quite a fair point and its not going unnoticed.
Your criminological answer 1 is reasonable. But I think the other answers are a bit of a stretch.
I wasn’t asking for sympathy for my daughter. I merely offered it as an example of the climate in our educational system to try to explain the actions of the Yale student protestors.
I don’t understand your question: “What classes does she take??” It sounds like you don’t take the problem very seriously. When I went to school, my teachers and professors refrained from injecting their politics and opinions into the classroom. When I go to doctor or other expert professional, I don’t get subjected to his politics. If I did I would take my business elsewhere. I expect the same from professors. Currently my daughter’s law professor for legal ethics (a required course) announced he was not going to lecture about legal ethics. He has chosen to go off topic and inject his politics into the lectures. I consider this unacceptable and a form of consumer fraud. I think the problem is tenure.
To be fair, Mackey was making an otherwise fair point about the relatively tangible opportunity that being published in the Yale Law Journal offers for someone like Camara. It is a fairer point and I certainly didn't take him to be equating the two's moral culpability.
I'm a little stunned that Mackey thinks that there is anything to Yale's position than just rank politics.
would you mind clarifying what "yale's position" is, since the different institutional actors seem to be taking a variety of stances on this particular issue?
what is with the yale hating; it's very odd.
To be honest, I don't take the problem very seriously but that's not what I meant by the question.
I don't take the problem very seriously because I think she, and I, and the rest of us, should feel guilty (read inclined to change, progress) about all of the ways in which we're privileged. I also, to be quite honest, don't think your daughter or others in her shoes really lose sleep over the guilt. It makes for some negative class experiences but I don't think it's really an oppressive emotional burden.
The meat of my question, however, seems to conform basically to your comment. I attended a fairly liberal law school in the Northeast and was not often encountered with these accusations. In Contracts or Torts, for instance, very little of this material came up. In Constitutional Law, some more. And I took classes specifically in these areas because of an interest and because I found a lack of the material in typical law school classes. With legal ethics, I'm not entirely surprised that questions of race come up but would be surprised to know they're constant. But that's really all I meant by asking what classes she took. I'm not overly sympathetic, as I've said, but I didn't intend to harp on her class-selection any more than that.
p.s.- Thanks, Kovarsky.
The Yale hating is because they're more interested in self-congratulation than, you know, this whole "law" thing.
You wrote, "I'm a little stunned that Mackey thinks that there is anything to Yale's position than just rank politics."
I feel you misunderstand. I'm perfectly content to say that it is just rank politics and not a statement about moral culpability or blameworthiness. [That's kinda precisely why I've kept asking others to chime in in defense of the moralistic perspective.]
OK. Now I'm really riding off (by which I mean leaving the office.)
You wrote, "I'm a little stunned that Mackey thinks that there is anything to Yale's position than just rank politics."
I feel you misunderstand. I'm perfectly content to say that it is just rank politics and not a statement about moral culpability or blameworthiness. [That's kinda precisely why I've kept asking others to chime in in defense of the moralistic perspective.]
OK. Now I'm really riding off...promise. Happy to start up an e-mail exchange if someone's really chomping at the bit though.
As I understand it Camara was 17 at the time he used that word. If saying something objectionable at 17 were grounds for refusing to publish that person's later writings, this country would have nothing to publish. Unfortunately, the typical 22 year old (even the typical 22 year old law student at Yale) just isn't old enough to appreciate fully just how utterly clueless 17 year olds are, even 17 year olds smart enough to get into law school.
No my daughter does not lose sleep, but neither do the Yale protestors lose sleep because a 17 year old used an offensive word in what he probably though were his private note. And I don’t think young white people should feel guilty because they have nothing to feel guilty for, unless you believe in collective guilt. If you want to play collective guilt games, then everyone is vulnerable, including Blacks. My whole point is this stuff should be kept out of the classroom.
I'd actually consider coming forward for a Senate confirmation hearing, but for academic work I really don't think it's the right thing to do.
1) Isn't Mumia getting a new trial?
2) Kiwi was 17, but a student at Harvard Law School. You can't play the he is just a normal kid card.
3) HIS NOTES WERE NOT PRIVATE, THEY WERE POSTED ON A PUBLIC SITE, WHY CAN'T PEOPLE GET THAT!!!!!!
Hmm...anything that might be offensive to your 17-year-old girl should be kept out of her earshot? That covers a lot of history, which in my opinion, too many of your 17 to 25 year-olds don't know. This crew was brought up on the Simpsons and heh-heh butthead humor. Let em take their (non-physical) lumps, it's a good intro to "reality". Why doesn't the "but he's only 17" argument fly in other instances; don't baby your children, people. Sounds like this is how the system is supposed to work.
Now jailing Irving, or continually resigning your focus group representatives, because a Nation of Islam member is also in the group, that's ok. Funny how, depending on the content of the speech, we all have different preferences of what the hosting group should or should not do. Obviously, the "n's" remark has not yet blown over in all circles. Would it had been so different if your group had been slurred? I wonder.
If only we could realize how much speech and respect is such a big part of the ugliness out there. Teach your kids a little respect young, and not just respect for the things you find respectable. That's how the world grows. There really are American kids out there who don't know about ugly speech and it's unfortunate repercussions sometimes.
1) Mumia isn't getting a new trial, a judge threw out the results of his sentencing hearing. Or something like that. He's still a convicted murderer.
2) Seventeen year-olds do dumbass things. And will say stupid stuff just for effect. If you're going to hold this against him, fine, but I think at Yale Law School you'd expect at least an attempt at moral consistency. If Senator Byrd (a former Kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan) came to speak there, he'd get a big wet sloppy kiss from the dean and the student body. If there is any place where you'd expect rationality to overcome short term self righteous posturing, it would be a premier law school. Alas.
Have you ever read The Lottery by Shirley Jackson? The parallels here are distrubing.
3) One of the problems with the internet is that publishing is so damn easy. We've been spared many embarrassing pieces of writing just by the delay of having to send it out tomorrow morning. With a computer, you hit SEND, and away it goes. I've sent emails that I wish I could take back just five minutes later. Judging an adult's work based on a computer posting made when they were seventeen is lazy and stupid.
As someone who is familiar with this case in its jurisdiction, Yale's gullibility does not surprise this non-Ivy League lawyer. I wonder if Yale's then-editors had the opportunity to review the trial transcripts and appeals before accepting this "sexy" cause celebre in one of the most respected legal journals in world. I appreciate Professor Bernstein pointing out this article.
First, many of the Yale students presumably believe that Abu-Jamal was wrongly convicted. If they're wrong about that, it's an error in factual judgment, not an error in moral judgment. If they're right, then Abu-Jamal has nothing to repent for.
Second, in each of Camara's apologies he has denied that he harbored any racism when he referred to his fellow students as "nigs," and in each he has failed to provide any explanation for why, in the absence of such racism, he would use such a term. It seems likely, given that context, that many of the students who protested his appearance reasonalby regard his apologies as insincere.
Is an unrepentant murderer worse than someone who uses a racial slur and is subsequently remorseful? Yes, of course. But being wrongly convicted of murder isn't evidence of any moral failing, in and of itself, while unrepentant racism is.
The Yale moral compasses seem, on the evidence Bernstein presents, to be working just fine.
Yale students' apparent willingness to embrace the conclusion that Abu-Jamal is innocent is part of the problem. No one who objectively considered the case doubts his guilt, but countless - well - liberals, are all too happy to exonerate someone who tugs at romanticism. Abu-Jamal is no doubt a murderer. Camara, as a 17-yr old kid, said a stupid thing. What makes this even more disingenous, is that I'm willing to bet you dollars to donuts, that the majority of people protesting Camara, have at one point or another told a black joke, or laughed at one. Just as I suspect a lot of people on this thread half. The fact that we are even having this discussion reflects negatively on our society in general, and YLS in particular.
half- have (sorry)What irritates me about the behavior of the students at YLS - and, it seems, the dean as well - is that they're willing to hear out a convicted murderer, but won't hear out an adult who used a racial epithet at the age of seventeen and has since apologized. This behavior lacks moral consistency and reeks of shallow self-righteousness.
Also, what reason could he give for using the word "nigs" that you would regard as sufficient? Could you give me an example? Or is he simply guilty for life for his actions as an obnoxious seventeen year old?
Tangentially, am I the only person who's deeply troubled by the entire discussion of the Mumia business? It's easy enough for me to believe there were some irregularities in his trial, and I'd like to see those addressed in a careful and sober manner, but the only people calling for any closer look at the case seem to be political agitators eager to obscure the truth in any way that will cast Mr. Jamal in a more favorable light, who give every indication that they'd be fighting just as hard to free him if they knew he were guilty, and who won't accept support from anybody who isn't also interested in crush capitalism. I'll accept that the guy is most likely guilty, but I'd like to see a little more certainty, and I have yet to encounter anybody speaking on this issue who's actually concerned with picking through the details to find the truth.
2) As far as Mumia goes, I've heard him speak numerous times on the radio (WBAI in NYC) and I have never, ever heard him deny that he shot that policeman. So far as I can tell, his claims to "innocence" are solely that he was justified in using revolutionary force against the capitalist, racist pigs.
You really think so? In my experience, that kind of racist humor is extremely rare in student liberal/radical circles.
Rhinoman writes:I don't think it does. They've heard Camara out, presumably --- his two statements on the matter were both short, and they've each been widely publicized on campus --- but they've found his explanations disingenous or incomplete.I find it hard to imagine that a law student would use the word "nigs" in the way that Camara did without there being some racist thinking behind it. Given that, I'd have a hard time crediting his apology unless he acknowledged that racism somehow or offered a convincing alternative explanation for his choice of words. To my knowledge, he's done neither.
One is "frisson", which can be loosely translated as "cheap thrills", and the other is "epater les bourgeoisie" which is obvious.
Integrity is for later, apparently.
Angus, what I'm trying to say is precisely that it's not just a factual error. It's not as though YLS students, en masse, made a good faith factual error after considering the available evidence. It's that law students, largely, have a knee-jerk reaction to speak truth to power. It was a factual error that they were only too happ to make, and that is a moral failure.
Yes, a convicted murderer's perspective is important. And he should be allowed to speak. If you don't want to hear him, don't go. If you don't want to read what he has to say, don't read it. As Howard Stern says, if you don't like what I'm saying, change the channel.
The problem begins when a group decided that someone shouldn't be heard because they're offensive. Who decides this? On what basis? What are the standards being used? It's not asking too much, I hope, for students at YLS to put forth a morally consistent position on this question. I'm curious what moral structure finds is possible to try and silence a speaker for comments he made at the age of seventeen and regrets, but finds it hunky-dory for a convicted murderer to speak freely. Is it asking too much to allow both of them to speak?
Or is it possible that the students (and apparently the dean) are viciously scapegoating this guy to compensate for their own guilt? It sure smells that way.
Also, what does it matter what he's publishing? If it was accepted by the Yale Law Review, perhaps it should be judged on the basis of legal scholarship. Again, judging someone's work and moral fitness as an adult based on comments they made as a youth is lazy and stupid.
As for Mumia, we could discuss that for days. He is, however, a convicted murderer, so it's hardly out of bounds do describe him as such.
Now, I don't know what the article was, or why the law journal accepted it, but I don't believe that the acceptance of an article by someone is itself a statement as to that person's guilt or innocence. And the decision not to protest something is even less of a statement. On the basis of Bernstein's description, I see no evidence that the students of Yale Law had any "en masse" opinion on Mumia's guilt or innocence one way or the other. It's not at all clear to me how he thinks they failed.
Also, I noticed that YLS Dean Harold Koh is an arrogant guy who likes to make big grandstanding statements with little to back them up. Unfortunately, John Yoo missed the symposium, but his partner from Northwestern Law, Jide Nzelibe, gave an interesting talk about Congressional authorization for wars. Finally, Cass Sunstein was extremely impressive.
If the black community were truly offended by the word "nigger" why do they keep using it amongst themselves? Why do they not denounce and walk out on comedians and musicians who use the word excessively?
It's time for people to get over themselves and stop forcing offense at every perceived slight.
(And it's about time we invent the WASP equivalent of "nigger" so some us have an excuse to fein offense more readily.)
You're just superlatively amazing. Comparing the emotional and social maturity of the typical YLS student (who would be 22-24 as a 1L, typically) with that of a 17 year old child prodigy (who, by his nature, is much, much more likely to be emotionally and socially delayed, sorry EV). It's nice to see the inner Stalinism showing in these "Liberals" with their demands for self abasement and self criticism, and then saying that a given apology wasn't grovelling enough.
These disingenous demands for a sufficient explanation are absolutely disgusting. The holier than though stance with regards to the actions of a 17 year old (who promptly apologised at the time) simply undermines the oppositions stance and serves as the bar against which all of their future actions and statements will be judged. One such as yourself should seriously consider if you have never and will never make a mistake, for that is the standard you are demanding.
Hypocrasy anyone?
you post assumes that those who published Mumia's piece believed he was guilty, but published it anyway. They likely thought he was wrongfully convicted, an innocent man on death row, and had something interesting to say, so they published it. Maybe he is guilty, but many on the left didn't and do not think so.
So, in condemning someone for racist speech, but publishing a work by an innocent man, Yale is being consistent (if you accept these premises).
If you're arguing that Mumia's article should have been published without regard to his status as a convicted criminal, I might agree. But no one can argue with a straight face that that's what happened. If anyone else had submitted the very same article, there is absolutely no chance it would have been published. YLJ usually prides itself on evaluating articles on their merits without regard to whether the author is a big-name scholar at a high-ranking school. It's completely outrageous that a person should be given preference for writing from death row, but no preference for writing from Harvard Law School. YLJ might as well publish some ghost-written political rant with George Clooney's name on it.
BTW, when I was an undergrad, I had a brief flirtation with the Left, and I read one of Mumia's books. It was terrible. I remember thinking that if irritating self-important ranting were a capital offense it wouldn't matter if he committed that murder. He's a terribly obnoxious and unpleasant individual, and he isn't half as intelligent or profound as he thinks he is.
Is there really no word, no description of yourself that you'd be upset to have a random stranger use against you in anger or dismissal but happy to have a friend use in an affectionate way? Really?
And while I'm up, another question. Why, when white guys whine, "But they call each other X! Why can't we?", why is X always "nigger" and never "brother"?
Welcome to the Volokh conspiracy. Where it's proven daily that only intellectuals can be so stupid.
“Hmm...anything that might be offensive to your 17-year-old girl should be kept out of her earshot?”
I guess I haven’t expressed myself clearly, or you have not read me carefully. It’s not a matter of protecting my daughter against anything said in the classroom. I’m not particularly concerned about an occasional remark. But it’s a waste of class time and beyond the prerogatives of the teachers to engage in bashing white people, and the United States, and constantly trying to lay a guilt trip on the students. I’m not talking about some of the unpleasant facts of human history that are a proper part of a history or literature class. If you don’t think black students should have to endure anything offensive, why should that not apply to white students as well?
When you say: ‘Let em take their (non-physical) lumps, it's a good intro to "reality".’ does that include black students too? If that’s the case then the whole “nig” comment can be written off as part of a student’s “reality” training.
It would be very interesting if someone who was on the YLJ at the time could comment about the discussion that led to the decision to print the essay.
It's interesting to note that of the students attending, 66% stayed and did not protest by leaving. Assuming this generalizes to the student body, a safe assumption since chances are, the protesters are more vehement than the whole, a supermajority either didn't care about Camara's past or forgave him for it.
So a majority agrees with the view Bernstein holds and yet this is taken to be proof of the evils of the liberal academy? I think you need more than 33% for this to be evidence of a liberal orthodoxy.
And to apply a little common sense, a cold-blooded murder of a person (whether a police officer or not) is simply a much greater evil that the use of the "n" word. It is not about feelings. It is the truth of things. The fact that the victim was a police officer makes it a greater evil for it also is an evil against the common good, which the police officer presumably wotks to preserve. That is why the murder of a police officer has often been considered a capital crime in and of itself.
The whole race thing is old. There are dark-skinned and light-skinned people in my family, through ancestry, marriage and adoption. We are all the same under the skin. The really white people that I knew are albinos, and every race has those.
Vato Loco
That might be the most ridiculous thing I've ever read in a thread on this blog. I was an HLS student at the time, and I assure you that, whether you feel that they should have been or not, people were genuinely offended by Camara's terminology. It is ludicrous to suggest that people only pretended to be upset. Nor would it make any more sense to say that no one is upset now, whether or not they were at the time. People were, and are, offended by what he wrote. It's not a conspiracy theory or a facade.
Having said that, I've studied with Camara, and I was struck not only by his intelligence but also his quiet and placid demeanor. I don't believe that he is, or necessarily even was, a racist. I think that he simply made the sort of foolish mistake that teenagers in high-pressure situations make; it was a shame, and he compounded the problem by dealing with it poorly at the time, but he seems to be living it down with professionalism and relative maturity these days.
As for YLJ publishing Jamal's article, I'm not sure the situations are so easily comparable. I think they would be more analogous if Jamal had tried to publish an article on bankruptcy or private international law. One plausible interpretation is that YLJ decided to publish a prisoner's firsthand account of death row, and why not a famous prisoner? But one problem with publishing the writings of condemned felons is that it is--I would imagine--difficult to find a decent and upstanding author.
I skimmed the Jamal article, and he doesn't proclaim his own innocence (although he does complain about the process he received, and the justice system generally) or profane the victim or do anything other than give his perspective from his cell. It's not very well written, but again, that's probably a hazard in publishing the works of condemned felons. There's a very good argument that there is a real value to the journal's readers in seeing the perspective of someone in Jamal's shoes, and that perspective doesn't come without moral baggage. I think the lack of protests could plausibly be explained that way. I think the protest against Camara's presence was a little goofy, but that it was in response to a different sort of situation.
For example, apply this to Prof. Bernstein, and let X="a few PC students walking out of a talk they didn't want to hear" and let Y="any murderer in the US that Dr. Bernstein didn't mention in his blog". I think it would be unfair to say that he believes some overreacting students are more morally blameworthy than any of the many hundreds of murderers he failed to individually denounce on this blog.
Also, to restate a point made by some others earlier: the normal thing you do with criminals is put them in prison, which is what was done with Mumia. The normal thing you do with racists is shun them socially, which is what the students were doing, even if it was excessive.
To be sure, it is a mistake to attribute Camara's employment of the most famous codeword for hatred in the American lexicon as harmless, youthful intemperance. Rather, it must be regarded as what it is -- a signal of a young boy's irrational fear and disregard for African-Americans.
That said, Camara may not be a racist today. His past and recent apologies for the incident at Harvard Law School should afford him at least the possibility of redemption. However, neither YLS nor its students have any duty to assume that redemption. Indeed, the protest was fair treatment of Camara, and no less than what he and others with similar past expressions of racism should expect from any community.
Can you imagine if physicists or chemists refused to publish or listen to the work of certain authors because they had once done something morally objectionable?
If indeed Camara's work amounted to shoddy scholarship influenced by a racist ideology, it ought to be easy enough to find that out by reading his paper. If not--if his work has merit--I fail to see how his personal views are material.
To me, the offensive thing is that not that Yale law students apparently objected to Camaraand not to Mumia's. The offensive thing is that Yale law school students were so juvenile as to stick their fingers in their ears and refuse to take scholarly work seriously because they dislike the author. If your ability to reason dispassionately doesn't extend that far, I wouldn't have guessed that you would make a very good candidate for admission to law school.
But this has happened, most notably in the case of work published by Nazi scientists. In fact, there was substantial debate w.r.t. a medical article, about whether the need to shun their work outweighed the possibility that it might save some lives.
Now, one can still question what to do there, but it's not comparable to what we're talking about here. If Camera had used some form of the n-word in the piece we're discussing, that would present an issue comparable to the Nazi issue, but a different one than the one we're discussing, I think.
May I presume the potential shunners were not the ones whose lives were at risk?
Fair enough point, there is a difference in the cases.
Actually, I sure some of the shunners were. This is a relatively straightforward notion that you are complicating. In this country in the present time, I've heard any number of Democrats and Republicans discount the statements, research and writings of others based on the simple fact that they ascribe to a different political philosophy. Look at any number of issues from the Medicare bill, Iraq, the economy, even that research paper about "whiny children and their Republican leanings" and you will see the discounting of information based on pre-judgements of that person.
Camera in his use of racist language has provided strong evidence of the pre-judgment that he could be a racist. So, what is so strange about a group who don't believe that they are racists to discount his writing. As someone stated before, there were many Nazi scientists who on a purely scholarly level were some of the brightest minds in the world. But rightfully so, they were shunned and their research (maybe fortunately, maybe unfortunately) was discounted because not many people would want someone implicated in the mass murder of human beings over for a lively debate about polio.
I'm sure you're the exception though...
If you can find a word to encapsulate the 400+ years of slavery, degradation, broken promises, segregations, lynchings, mass murders, desecration of the family, elimination of history and culture that WASPs have suffered, a word so poisonous that the only way to endure it was to sip, sip, sip, to develop a tolerance to it, finally, owning the word and ensuring that it wouldn't have the same power over you, if you can find a word that encompasses all of that and more for the WASP experience, then by all means, own it, publish it, put it in your academic outlines. Only please, please, let us in on what that word is.
I have heard similar sentiments from a surprisingly large number of people, though usually only with regard to recent grads.
So there are my creds.
The Carmara kid showed no indication of racism. I know that many have invested in rampant racism, but that doesn't make it so. He used a word. You have no clue why. He may not have known, at age seventeen, that it was loaded word. It's so loaded that when I e-mailed somebody that I had been called a niggerlover, the high-ranking chin-pullers of AOL had an all-night meeting to see if I was worthy of their business.
It's a gotcha word, along with, say, niggardly.
I say, BS.
My son had a friend who called a teammate a bad word and was absolutely appalled to find it was considered unforgiveable. Gotcha again.
Sometimes some guy's mouth slips, like a DJ lately unemployed.
You want to get involved, see Sheets Byrd, the grand old man of the Senate. But he can fight back so I expect he'll be left alone.
People who doubted the author of the whiny conservative study were skeptical because they suspected that, as a leftist, it was likely that he would conduct the study in a manner that was unflattering to conservatives. I don't think anyone claimed that the author should be ignored either because being a leftist made him generally untrustworthy or because he should be shunned from academia for his political beliefs.
Most conservatively, I'd assume it means a belief by a person that a particular race of people is somehow better or worse than other races. Is that it? More liberally, it seems some people would apply it to anybody who holds views which have a potential to disadvantage or offend individuals of a certain race.
Another version might be someone who harbors hostility toward a particular race of people.
In Kiwi's case, it seems that the second option is the only one that really fits, or that fit at one time. My experience tells me that the use of racial epithets is hardly proof of either feelings of superiority or of hostility. Friends who are racial minorities have told me that particularly amongst certain minority groups, the use of racial epithets is in fact common. As one friend said, "In Texas, the spics call them niggers, and the niggers call us spics. It's no big deal." I could be wrong, but in fact, my impression is that there is a hip-hop culture, which includes other racial minorities and even whites, who use the term "nigger" freely and without any sort of hostility. Hostility, superiority or inferiority don't seem to play a role.
Personally, I think the label of "racist" should apply mostly to those who meet the first or third definition. Even then, however, I'm not sure how much society benefits from trying to root out closet racists. My feeling is that society becomes more liberal not by humiliating and ostracizing closet racists, but by showing why racist ideas are harmful and do not make sense. Raising a stink over something like the Camara incident strikes me as entirely counter-productive, increasing anger and hostility on all sides.
Indeed, I think the effect now, if anything, is that most people will now feel sorry for Camara.
That doesn't mean it's tacky or makes you sound stupid, as do using "Bitch", "Kike", "Spic" and a myriad of other slang terms.
This is political correctness at its worse.
Well, what law school student body do you look to as your moral compass? Inquiring minds want to know. ;-)
That doesn't mean it's tacky or makes you sound stupid, as do using "Bitch", "Kike", "Spic" and a myriad of other slang terms.
This is political correctness at its worse."
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Joe7, you couldn't be more wrong.
Nor apparently, more uninformed. That poisonous word, as Aaron explained: "encapsulate[s] 400+ years of slavery, degradation, broken promises, segregation[], lynchings, mass murder[], desecration of the family, [and] elimination of [Black] history and culture...."
The attempts by young Blacks in the 70s and 80s to appropriate and short-circuit the oppressive nature and use of the word -- while successful enough to render its use common among many contemporary Black youth -- has not succeeded in completely sanitizing it of its unique vileness.
Contrary to your assertion, the extent to which the use of the word is "tolerated" in the Black community is not easily generalized. From anecdotal evidence, it seems that most Blacks are disturbed by its prevalence in youth culture, and view its use as unacceptable.
Among those for whom use of the term is viewed as acceptable, there is a strong recognition (whether consistently acknowledged or not) of the vital resistance which appropriation of the term represents. For them, use of the term is tantamount to a political act. One in which the speaker disarms his former oppressor by robbing him of his most vile insult and renders that insult powerless over him. But more often than not, that tranformative act is an individual one, and not a transaction free of residual costs.
An unfortunate irony of the attempt to appropriate the “N” word has been its revitalization and continued presence in American culture. Now, the level of its inflammatory character depends, in some cases, on the speaker and listener. One should not let that peculiarity fool one into believing that the everlasting and permanent true character of the "N" word is not one of deep depravity and near-unspeakable awfulness.
Are you REALLY so dense as to miss the whole point - which is that you can't subjectively choose to be morally offended when one person says a word and not when another says the same word. Go and listen to some of the context in which that word is used in popular culture and tell me it isnt as negatively directed towards people of color as whatever this student may have said in context of his usage.
'Its OK when I do it but not when you do it' is practically the frame of mind that justified Jim Crow in the first place. How are people ever supposed to sustain a dialogue about race when they can't even share the same words?
Sounds more like a monlogue and the guilty should shut up and take it. If the guilty are not available, then anybody who looks as if he might be descended from a group whose phenotype included some of the guilty should do the shutting up.
Dialogue my sweet Aunt Fanny.
And I wound agree that the usage of that word at all is most often a very negative one - but unless those people who walked out do the same thing each and every time they hear that word in any type of hateful context whether it be spoken by black, white, brown or whomever, then i'm calling them out on their bullshit.
This process of picking and choosing when to be offended is the very worst in what this overly politically correct culture breeds. (Cartoon flap, anyone?)
2) Say he didn't know better, which is possible. I highly doubt it's because of his "black acquaintances." For one thing, the majority of whites in this country don't actually have black acquaintances. Sorry, but what you see on MTV, TV shows and movies, or even what you see in blacks that you go to school with or work with but almost never speak to, don't count as "acquaintances." Whites at top law schools, especially, will have few--if any--black acquaintances (because they don't go to school with many blacks nor grow up around many blacks). And the kind of black acquaintances they will have will, more than likely, be the sort who do not use or approve of that kind of language from ANYONE, including blacks. So if Camara misguidely got "nigs" from anywhere, it was racist whites who referred to blacks as that so much throughout his life that he didn't exactly know what was wrong with writing "nigs" in an outline. If he truly used that term and had no ill feelings towards blacks, that suggests some naivete in using such a term and its meaning.
3) I guess A Zarkov hasn't explained his/her daughter's situation explicitly, but I seriously doubt teachers are in a classroom point-blank, or nearly so, stating that whites should feel guilty for being white...especially if the teachers in question are white. But, as I indicated, I don't have enough information to say that for sure. Any thinking person knows it's not the modern white person's fault that he/she has privileges in this society that are not as readily available to others. It's a system that was put in place long before any of us got here--some do help maintain it, or actually whites in general help maintain it by taking the privileges they receive...but it's quite unrealistic to expect any white person to reject those privileges or have an easy time recognizing what they earned because of what they did vs what they received because of who they are in this society.
4) Honestly, I do question why the Yale students were so up-in-arms about this, or why any non-black person would care. I can tell by comments on this site that most whites don't truly see anything wrong with using a racial slur, since so many of you can equate it to just saying silly things being a 17-yr old. As a black person, I can honestly say I don't know why you should see anything wrong with it. You don't have the context from experience to see why this is a problem or to truly be offended by it. In fact, I have attempted to question white friends about why racism against minorities bothers them, and none of them have ever been able to give me a satisfactory answer. So, in a sense, I agree with the one person who says no one is really bothered by "nig," and that it's more like people are acting when they *are* bothered by it.
I’ve read the piece written by Mumia Abu-Jamal (Teetering on the Brink: Between Death and Life, 100 Yale L.J. 993 (1991)), and it wasn’t a legal academic article, more like an op-ed piece against the death penalty. The thing that struck me was not only did the YLJ publish a non-academic piece (and a poorly written one at that) but that they apparently paid the author for the privilege of doing so.
As some of you might've gleaned from my pseudonym, I'm in part Puerto Rican (the remainder of my ethnic heritage doesn't have any good ehtnic slurs, only lame, obscure, silly ones that I'm aware of, so I'll just call myself P.R. for simplicity's sake). There are (shock!) some people out there who don't like Puerto Ricans on some level or another, and might occasionally desire to express their contempt/hatred/distrust of P.R.s. Now, with enough elucidating context or sufficiently vitriolic tone of voice, it's possible to communicate this sentiment merely through using the words "Puerto Rican," and I will - justifiably - become offended. Why? Because it's clear in this context that this person harbors negative feelings towards my co-P.R.s, towards me for no reason other than being P.R., etc., etc. What he said probably wouldn't/shouldn't fall under some category of proscribed speech, but then I'm very forgiving as far as that goes (well, in a legal sense, not an interpersonal one).
OTOH, I'm a guy who constantly makes jokes, and frequently off-color, mean, even "offensive" ones (both ethnic in nature and not). I don't mean them to cause offense, which is why I only make them around people I have good reason to suspect won't be offended. In turn, my friends know that I welcome similar humor directed at myself. I make jokes hinging on my being P.R., and sometimes use slurs in these jokes - let's go with "spic". If one of my friends makes a similar comment/crack in my presence about me or other "spics", I don't get offended (unless I think they were actually kidding on the square, which is a whole other complicated barrel of worms). But what if a stranger says "spic," in a way that doesn't clearly convey jovial insincerity *or* transparent racism? Hard to judge. If it comes from someone whom I suspect of actually being a "spic", I tend to presume they're not being racist (though you never know). If it comes from someone whom I don't know to be a "spic"...well. Given that the word does get used sincerely with intent to convey contempt/hatred, is it really a surprise that I'm suspicious of its use by someone about whom I don't have any mitigating evidence? Now given that slurs (and racism) against black people have a much more prominent and much nastier history in this country than slurs/racism against people with Latin American ancestry: are you really so surprised that many black people are suspcious/unwelcoming of the "n-word"'s usage by unknown white people?
Joe7; still waiting on that word...
All: It seems quite inconceivable that so many gave Camara a pass because he was 17 when he wrote the slur. It seems to me that a 17 y.o. at HLS should get cut LESS slack--presumably he had to demonstrate more maturity than his cohort to gain admittance in the first place.
At 17, I could walk, chew gum, drive a car, and, oh yeah, refrain from inappropriate racial slurs. I could also REVIEW MY FRIGGIN' NOTES IF I WERE MAKING THEM PUBLIC! It seems to me that Camara wanted them seen as is, and frankly didn't care about the consequences...
Yes he has apologized, albeit to some, insincerely, and of course has the opportunity to make amends. But this post is wrongly directed, and provides nothing more than a cheap shot against This may have been a protest against the idiocy of the YLJ as much as against Camara.
Finally, given DB's leap to castigate the Yale student body--a student body that he acknowledges is different from the one he was once a member of, and his willingness to ascribe to them an ill-favored motive--I would venture to say that Yale doesn't look to him as a moral compass either.
>Any thinking person knows it's not the modern white person's fault that he/she has privileges in this society that are not as readily available to others. It's a system that was put in place long before any of us got here--some do help maintain it, or actually whites in general help maintain it by taking the privileges they receive...but it's quite unrealistic to expect any white person to reject those privileges or have an easy time recognizing what they earned because of what they did vs what they received because of who they are in this society.<
Do you really think all whites are given privileges that are unavailable to blacks, or is it just a generalization? My feeling is that most whites are certainly more privileged than most blacks in America, and that this is indeed troubling, but I have a hard time seeing how one can generalize by calling all whites privileged. Generalizing about races in that way strikes me as problematic, because I think a lot of white people don't feel particularly privileged, and I don't think they are.
As far as the offensiveness of racial slurs, I respect your position. I was thinking earlier that if, alternatively, Camara had made a comment that came accross as anti-semitic or even supportive of the Holocaust, that he would probably have a much greater number of detractors. If one views the use of the n word as endorsing our history of slavery, then I'm not sure the difference. At the same time, I think it's important to recognize that people come from different places. When I was growing up, one song that me and my friends laughed at was the Monty Python song, "Never Be Rude To An Arab." The words:
Never Be Rude To An Arab - Monty Python
Never be rude to an Arab,
An Israeli, or Saudi, or Jew,
Never be rude to an Irishman,
No matter what you do.
Never poke fun at a Nigger,
A Spik, or a Wop, or a Kraut,
And never put down...
(explosion!)
I'm really not sure what I can say about it now, but did we laugh because we hated all those groups? No, we laughed because it was outrageous, and as far as we were concerned, meaningless. Half the words, I didn't even know what they meant. But I knew they were bad, and that made it funny.
Are people familiar with this song? The fact that it even exists, I think, shows that the issue is more complicated than some seem to think.
Also, yes, ALL white people in this country are privileged--note the dearth of DWW traffic stops. It's not their fault, it's a legacy of the society we've inherited.
Um, because we can, and do? Just because you're still stuck in 1953 doesn't mean the rest of us should be consigned to the same eternal hell.
And the only license I need to speak is right