Stuart Taylor in the latest National Journal, in a sensational response to Eric Holder's recent remarks on race.
And Kristin Butler is back!
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Comments and analysis about the Duke/Nifong case (2006-2014).
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- "From the Scottsboro Boys to Clarence Gideon, some of the most memorable legal narratives have been tales of the wrongly accused. Now “Until Proven Innocent,” a new book about the false allegations of rape against three Duke lacrosse players, can join these galvanizing cautionary tales . . , Taylor and Johnson have made a gripping contribution to the literature of the wrongly accused. They remind us of the importance of constitutional checks on prosecutorial abuse. And they emphasize the lesson that Duke callously advised its own students to ignore: if you’re unjustly suspected of any crime, immediately call the best lawyer you can afford."--Jeffrey Rosen, New York Times Book Review
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42 comments:
This is simply stupendous by Stuart.
Holder's irresponsible remarks really made me angry.
So glad that Stuart gave him some straight talk.
Once again, Stuart Taylor gets it right.
Wow. Stuart makes some SERIOUS points. Glad you included this, K.C.
Stuart Taylor wrote an outstanding piece. If Eric wants to start off by calling me a coward, fine let's have at it. Eric, rebut for me this statement:
Young black people would be better off, safer, and cared for on a southern plantation in 1850 than in today's inner cities.
Waiting to hear from you, Eric.
haskell,
I like telling it straight.You're a coward.A yellow-bellied coward. It is not surprising either & you're not alone. Stuart Taylor is right there with you as well. Matter of fact, Stuart & KC both are cowards, otherwise they wouldn't have been so damn bias in the reporting on the lacrosse case. Maybe if they had been more honest, their book would have been a success.
Stuart scores a bull's eye with his comments. Particularly important is his comment about Black History month. American history text books over-emphasize, if anything what minorities have contributed in relationship to the amount of material that must be covered in a standard year's course. When the role of Hamilton is relegated to a sentence in order play up the contributions of Oprah Winfrey - then something is seriously out of whack. And, to voice any objection in academic circles is to be tarred a racist.
cks
I have paid 0 attention to Holder before this article. I saw that he made a rant but I ignored it. Taylor really lays into this guy. Perhaps Holder isn't used to the national scene where you can't just bs your way through office.
Well Eric, haven't heard much. Here is a factoid to think about:
According to the Tuskegee Institute figures, between the years 1882 and 1951, 4,730 people were lynched in the United States: 3,437 Negro and 1,293 white.3 The largest number of lynchings occurred in 1892. Of the 230 persons lynched that year, 161 were Negroes and sixty-nine whites.
Blacks make up 13% of the U.S. population but 49% of homicide victims, the Justice Department reported last week. About 8,000 blacks were murdered in 2005, more than twice the number of Americans killed in the entire Iraq war so far.
Wonder why we tolerate a war on our black citizens?
Wow, anonymous. Great attack. The hallmark of the modern liberal is the vicious, gratuitious ad hominem attack. Uh, would you be so kind as to why you feel I am a coward? I started to put "think I am a coward" but realize that feeling not thinking is the modus operandi here.
You may wish to rebut my 9:14 post. Feel free to have at it.
The clock is running...
What's the over/under on how long Ogilvy, LMCO, and others are forced to cancel their ad spots in the National Journal?
Congratulations are in order for the Ntl. Journal deciding to publish Mr. Taylor's response.
Hope and change are mirror words defined by the receiver. This soft language intentionally leaves interpretation open. I'm not quite clear on the intended meaning (other than to get eleceted), are you? I am however learning every day. Actions speak louder than words.
Mr. Holder's speech should not have been a big surprise to anyone. His actions may be - we'll see.
Anon @1:16
It's always a joy to read your musings. Perhaps you would be so kind as to list several instances where Stuart and KC were "so damn bias (sic)in the reporting on the lacrosse case."
Please tell us straight. Please use verifiable facts. Please cite verifiable sources. I eagerly await your response.
Grafton
"Wonder why we tolerate a war on our black citizens?"
A "war on" or war among?
It is true that Stuart Taylor's article is the "most honest" article written on the subject of race by a white American of his stature. However, it is not honest.
Though it is entitled "Let The Honest Talk About Race Begin" (emphasis added), I contend that Stuart will admit that honest talk cannot "begin" until the issue of black-on-white crime --here "white" includes all non-blacks -- is addressed front and center. Stuart unfortunately does not mention a single word about black-on-white crime, and I know it is not because he's uninformed on the subject! (And the subject of crime can hardly be "off-topic" in a lawyer's public letter to the nation's chief law enforcement officer.)
It is immensely painful to see that even such a brave scholar as Stuart is too intimidated to mention the elephant in the room.
Only when black-on-white crime is at long last admitted into the national conversation can we begin to have an honest conversation about race in this country.
RRH
....."their book would have been a success."
Would have been?
UPI will forever be the definitive account of the deliberate, egregious, and evil attempts by an entire town and a university administration to railroad three innocent men.
For the sake of some brand of mental illness that seems to have afflicted so many who use "race" as the reason and excuse for every inadequacy known to man.
The days of that tired meta-narrative continuing to work are coming, mercifully, to an end.
Even the dyed-in-the-wool Far Left are beginning to be embarrassed by such methods.
One of the hardest things to do is to get a liberal to admit the truth about black-on-white crime as RRH points out. I know a liberal who will not concede an inch on this issue.
From TN
Peterson might have, indeed, murdered his wife; however, I must totally disagree with prosecutors that law enforcement in Durham did not overstep and treat him unfairly.
We all know of what the DPD is capable.
Everyone in that place hated Peterson simply because for years he wrote newspaper columns making fun of their bumbling and their ineptitude.
When they ransacked his mansion, they had a field day with his personal property.
Everything they could do to harm him with peripheral issues, they did it.
For that, alone, he deserves a new trial.....even if he did murder his wife.
But I doubt he'll get one.
Anonymous ay 1:16
Have you tried decaf? Too bad your emotionality and overly dramatic rhetoric blind your points and cause your erratic sentences and typos. By the way, do you believe all whites are "yellow bellied cowardss" or just the ones who comment on illegality and immorality in our midst?
Well anonymous, I am not convinced that there is a lot of diffence between 'on' and 'among'. Hiram Revels, a true hero of Civil Rights, and our first Black Senator, observed, in a letter to President Grant:
"Since reconstruction, the masses of my people have been, as it were, enslaved in mind by unprincipled adventurers, who, caring nothing for country, were willing to stoop to anything no matter how infamous, to secure power to themselves, and perpetuate it..... My people have been told by these schemers, when men have been placed on the ticket who were notoriously corrupt and dishonest, that they must vote for them; that the salvation of the party depended upon it; that the man who scratched a ticket was not a Republican. This is only one of the many means these unprincipled demagogues have devised to perpetuate the intellectual bondage of my people.... The bitterness and hate created by the late civil strife has, in my opinion, been obliterated in this state, except perhaps in some localities, and would have long since been entirely obliterated, were it not for some unprincipled men who would keep alive the bitterness of the past, and inculcate a hatred between the races, in order that they may aggrandize themselves by office, and its emoluments, to control my people, the effect of which is to degrade them."
Seems like there may be some people benefitting from keeping racial problems alive.
RRH 2:27. I am afraid that many liberals do not care about black on white crime. It is only through emphasizing their failed social policies and the awful consequences of these policies on those whom the policies were designed to help, will you make a difference. Ask the Rev Wright, ask Eric Holder: How many of your children died last week? See what the answer is. Many liberals finally got upset with Al Queda, not because of their vicious murdering philosophy, but when their number 2 guy called Obama "a house n-----". We are dealing with alien thought processes here.
Tremendous rejoinder by Stuart Taylor. Thanks for pointing this out KC
Jack in Silver Spring
haskell said...
RRH 2:27. I am afraid that many liberals do not care about black on white crime.
Yes, I know they don't. But they do want to talk about (little else) but race. Most of their ideology is built around their racial narrative. By refusing to allow them to have a dialogue unless they agree to address black-on-white crime, you force them to either (1) talk about this important issue or (2) be silent rather than to admit the existence of the elephant in the room.
(I used that phrase, "elephant in the room" in my original comment. A little later, I realized that the proper phrase was "the 800-pound gorilla in the room". Then I laughed when I realized how the race-baiters would latch onto the use of that term.)
RRH
I followed the Michael Peterson trial very closely. He is as obviously guilty of murdering his wife as Nifong is guilty of prosecutorial misconduct.
How do you explain TWO women in Peterson's life being found dead at the bottom of a stairwell? The first was in Germany in the mid-80's. Michael Peterson was the last person to see both women alive. How do you explain blood spatter eight feet above Kathleen Peterson's body if she fell? Why were Michael Peterson's shorts covered with blood spatter?
As far as people being angered by his columns, when the jury was being selected, almost nobody had even heard of Michael Peterson. Peterson ripped EVERYBODY in his columns, a standard ploy. Few read them or took them seriously. If there is going to be a new trial, it should be for the murder of Elizabeth Ratliff with Michael Peterson as the defendant. She was found at the foot of stairs in 1985 under the same circumstances as Kathleen Peterson.
Roy Cooper is just as correct in this decision as he was when he proclaimed the Duke players innocent.
From TN
From Tennessee?
Oh, well now.
That changes everything.
For people who read, many remember his columns and the ones written about the DPD did not go unnoticed.
Ask anyone who used to work at the old H-S.
In any case, life is full of such coincidences.
I don't know what Peterson did.
I wasn't there by the pool after his wife had drunk herself into a stupor as she often did.
Lastly, after having witnessed the behavior of her sister on the stand and the behavior of a few of her family members, I think Peterson deserves a medal for having endured that aspect of things, at least.
Is Holder a Communist?
Looks as though someone else in the academy is getting the Larry Summers treatment.
KC might have mentioned this fact earlier.
I don't remember.
But this article singles out ex-Duke president Nan Keohane as having assisted the "activist" Harvard faculty in going after Summers.
I see that Stuart has an update to his column:
Update:
"The Justice Department's brief writers did do a better job than Holder's speechwriters. While they stopped short of supporting the white firefighters, they did urge the justices to vacate a lower court's ruling against the whites. They argued for sending the case back to determine whether the city's claimed reason for denying the promotions -- fear of liability to black firefighters -- was 'a pretext for intentional racial discrimination' against the whites."
Updated at 12:09 p.m. on Feb. 27.
One key complaint against the Duke administrators was that they failed to actively defend their white lacrosse players for fear of reprisal (legal or political) by a very vocal black minority. We must now ask the question: when does inaction to avoid racial discrimination become actionable reverse discrimination? How does Duke’s failure to support its students compare to that of the City of New Haven, which failed to certify the firemen’s test examinations?
In my opinion, the Justice Department’s request to send the case back for a determination “whether the city's claimed reason for denying the promotions -- fear of liability to black firefighters -- was ‘a pretext for intentional racial discrimination’ against the whites” sidesteps the key issue. Was fear of reprisal a just cause to deny promotion to the otherwise best qualified candidates?
Reference Ricci v. Stefano, http://www.ca2.uscourts.gov:8080/isysnative/RDpcT3BpbnNcT1BOXDA2LTQ5OTYtY3Zfb3BuMi5wZGY=/06-4996-cv_opn2.pdf
...But this article singles out ex-Duke president Nan Keohane as having assisted the "activist" Harvard faculty in going after Summers...
Is this the same Nan K who came in with her own wacko conspiracy theory about the women of Duke feeling COMPELLED to wear makeup in class...and then using this tripe as an excuse to completly unravel the social fabric on the university?
Duke is a sterile field now, socially and apparently morally. Glad I missed it.
ES Duke 1990
Holder's speech was a poor one and there is much that deserves criticism. Taylor places the blame for the problems facing the Black community primarily on two items. First he seems to be saying that our welfare system is to blame for the breakup of the family in Black single parent households. Is his solution for this elimination of subsidized housing and food stamps? Does he want this country to throw these people on the streets. He doesn't even mention the efforts of our politicians to hold back minimum wages for decades as part of the problem. Thankfully a federal increase from 6.55/hr to a whopping 7.25/hr is scheduled for this July, but that falls well short of what is needed to be able to pay rent, utilities, groceries and day care for just about any single parent.
He also seems to blame Black student's attitudes (not wanting to act like white students?) as the main problem in our education system. I don't agree with that opinion at all. A good discussion of race will require both sides to look hard a policies that they support as well as those that they don't. Both sides also need to lay aside the blame game and look at real causes of problems without making accusations and come up with real solutions without saying just change your attitude and work hard and study hard and all will be well.
To the 7.28:
A quick point of clarification: while I'm not expert on welfare literature, I am broadly familiar with it, and I'm unaware of anyone (except perhaps on the far, far right fringe) who has posited a relationship between food stamps and the breakup of the black family. So I'm not sure I understand the relevance of your question, "Is his solution for this elimination of subsidized housing and food stamps?"
Also, there is nothing in Stuart's writing (either in this column, or anyplace else) that suggests he blames "Black student[]s['] attitudes (not wanting to act like [W]hite students?) as the main problem in our education system."
Professor Walter Williams of Geroge Mason University has an excellent riposte to the Holder speech "Holder's ideas on racial 'cowardice' deeply flawed". It was in today's forum section of the Cincinnati Enquirer but it is distributed by Creators Syndicate. He addresses the cowardice of university administrations in yielding to "black demands" for various things (separate graduations, segregated dorms, etc) yet makes the point that if white were to make such demands administrators would "...label such demands as intolerable racism.".
cks
TO "cks"--
Here's the column you reference.
Debrah - Thank you.
I am not sufficiently computer literate to post a link to articles. Since my computer experts are away at college, I am left without assistance.
cks
KC:
Here is the reference to welfare: " The dominant cause is, rather, our tortured history: slavery and past discrimination, of course, but also the misguided welfare policies and cultural trends that did so much to destroy work incentives, foster irresponsible child-bearing and dependence on the dole, and break up poor families in the latter half of the 20th century."
And here is the reference to Black Students: "The most-important remedies for the problems plaguing many African-Americans are not more racial-grievance talk or civil-rights lawsuits. They are education, hard work, and the cultural renewal necessary to overcome the views of many black students that studying is "acting white.""
It appears one is preceded by the phrase "dominant cause" and the other by the phrase "most inportant remedies". Perhaps I am mis-reading. In any case, I don't believe either is a good start to opening a discussion.
To the 3.20:
I'm quite aware of the column's reference to the effect of welfare policies on black families--this is, after all, a fairly mainstream argument. There are, of course, critics of this point of view, mostly on the left wing of the Democratic Party.
I did not, however, see anything about reducing food stamps, nor am I aware of any literature suggesting a relationship between food stamps and the breakup of the black family. I therefore still do not see the relevance of asking a question about whether Taylor was calling in his column for reducing food stamps.
Regarding black students--Taylor's critique, of course, mirrored that of Bill Cosby: that too often among African-American students, studying is perceived as "acting white." There's nothing in his column, or anyplace else, to suggest that he called for black students to act like white students--or, for that matter, that he even commented one way or the other how white students act.
"misguided welfare policies and cultural trends that did so much to destroy work incentives, foster irresponsible child-bearing and dependence on the dole, and break up poor families in the latter half of the 20th century."
What misguided welfare policies is he referring to then that contribute to the break up of poor families? If not food stamps or subsidized housing, is he referring to the EIC? I understand your defense of his remarks but he is also playing a blame game here and his remarks have about as much chance of opening a civil and respectable discussion on race in our society as Holder's speech, in my opinion.
Perhaps you could ask him for some clarification?
To the 7.01:
To return to my initial comment on this thread:
I am not expert on welfare policy, but I am not unfamiliar with the literature, either. I am not aware of anyone who has contended that food stamps account for the high rate of single-parent black households.
I am aware of (lots of) writers who have contended that insufficient work requirements, or regulations that limited earnings eligibility and therefore unintentionally discouraged marriage, or policies that increased payments given for additional children have done so. I am not saying I agree with any or all of these arguments, simply that they were the ones raised and actively debated.
So, when Stuart wrote about the effect of "misguided welfare policies" on the black family for a journal that gears toward the Washington policy set, we have two options: (1) he was referring to food stamps, a program virtually no one has associated with the breakup of the black family; (2) he was referring to a set of welfare policies that lots of writers (on both sides of the ideological divide) have debated.
My sense is that 99.9% of his readers would understand that he was talking about policy set (2). You, of course, are free to continue to believe he was talking about food stamps, but I did want to clarify the point for those who might have been genuinely in the dark about the policy debate to which Stuart was referring.
anonymous at 7:01 PM says to KC...
I understand your defense of [Stuart Taylor's] remarks but he is also playing a blame game here and his remarks have about as much chance of opening a civil and respectable discussion on race in our society as Holder's speech, in my opinion.
It is impossible to have a fruitful discussion on race that does not enrage the Marxists that dominate the race-industry. Therefore, if the Marxists are allowed to define what is "civil and respectable", there is no hope of having the conversation.
RRH
I respectfully disagree with the anonymous poster who equates the likelyhood that Michael Peterson murdered his wife with the likelyhood that Mike Nifong committed prosecutorial misconduct. A movie on the Peterson case (The Staircase, a.k.a. Suspicions) was my introduction to the Durham D.A.'s office, and for this reason I was skeptical about the lacrosse allegations. The prosecution offered a “missing” fireplace poker as the most likely murder weapon. Inconveniently, it turned up in the Peterson’s garage. Assistant D.A. Freda Black pandered to homophobia in some of her comments to the jury (Peterson is bisexual). Elizabeth Ratliff (a family friend) who was found dead on a staircase in 1985 was thought to have died of natural causes by the German authorities. She was thought to have suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. But the DA decided to exhume her embalmed body and to have the autopsy performed by the same coroner who examined Kathleen Peterson’s body. This may be good prosecuting, but it is bad science. The Durham coroner had a dog in the fight; therefore, a disinterested coroner would have been a more trustworthy fact-finder. I put the odds that Peterson is guilty at roughly 50% but the odds that Nifong abused the trust he had been given at 100%.
Chris
Most excellent, Chris.
One of the best responses on this issue I've read in a while.
"So, when Stuart wrote about the effect of "misguided welfare policies" on the black family for a journal that gears toward the Washington policy set, we have two options: (1) he was referring to food stamps, a program virtually no one has associated with the breakup of the black family; (2) he was referring to a set of welfare policies that lots of writers (on both sides of the ideological divide) have debated."
Set 2 would include the Earned Income Tax Credit, Medicaid, and Child Care subsidies. Subsidized Housing is not technically a welfare policy, but is normally included in this debate. Unemployment benefits are also normally included in this discussion. Former President Clinton promised to "end welfare as we know it" and in 1996 Welfare reform passed with the support of most Republicans in Congress (sounds strange now). The basic changes were more work requirements for those receiving benefits, limiting the time they could be out of work and still receive benefits, and increasing the number of hours a person had to work to receive benefits. It would appear that Taylor is referring to the welfare policies prior to 1996 as the ones that were "misguided", but it is possible he views both that way. He makes no mention which policies he thinks are misguided nor does he make mention of which ones contributed to the break up of Black families. Unfortunately, even after welfare reform, the percentage of single parent Black families continues to increase.
Regardless of which set of policies he is referring to, I do not agree with him that any welfare policies are contributing to the break up of any poor families, nor do I support the elimination of any of these needed policies to somehow stem the tide of single family households.
My personal opinion is that we still need a better minimum wage, more affordable health care, and a better education system (one of the areas where we do agree). He seems focused on Affirmative Action and reverse discrimination that takes place in our country and I think that this is also an area that is open to change and improvement.
However, by connecting misguided welfare policies to Black family break ups he has played the blame game by implying Blacks are taking advantage of a system that supports both black and white families. I agree that some people of both races take advantage of the system here, however for most it is a matter of survival, in my opinion.
Something for everyone's perusal:
No Warning Shots Fired is a website set up by the "Truth Minista" of Durham, Paul Scott.
Another ever-present "activist" similar to Victoria Peterson.
In this post he's praising Eric Holder for "having his back" and with a serious tone tells readers that race isn't discussed enough in this country.
LOL!!!
This kind of dialogue is so retro that it's basically a shocker to read.
However, this guy is yet another vivid example of so much of the Durham mindset.
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