Leonard Strickland was beaten to death; in jail, by prison guards. Those who did so, and those who supervised them, were secure in the knowledge that very little would be, and could be, done to bring them to justice. History and the law is on their side. In 1992, in one of Clarence Thomas‘ earliestContinue reading “‘A Manual For The Police On How To Conduct Beatings’”
Category Archives: Philosophy
Gideon’s Army: Fighting A Just War
The first time I saw Gideon’s Army, Dawn Porter‘s documentary about three public defenders fighting a lonely battle in the American South, I watched impassively, even as anger and sadness swirled within me. The second time I did so–yesterday, in a classroom with the students in my Philosophy of Law class–I blinked back tears. (MoreContinue reading “Gideon’s Army: Fighting A Just War”
Donald Trump, Sabbatai Zevi, And The Unchastened Devotee
I have made note, here, of a habit of mine intended to prompt writing: Sometimes I scribble little notes to myself…prompted by observations while walking…by a passage read in a book…a scene in a movie. Sometimes they make sense when I return to them…and an expanded thought based on them finds its way into myContinue reading “Donald Trump, Sabbatai Zevi, And The Unchastened Devotee”
San Bernardino, Selective Surveillance, And The Paralyzed Gun ‘Debate’
Here are two related thoughts running around in my head since the San Bernardino massacre. On past occasions, whenever one of these quintessentially American mass shootings would be carried out, I would wonder about what could happen to jolt the gun-control ‘debate’ in this country out of its well-worn grooves. (The scare quotes are necessaryContinue reading “San Bernardino, Selective Surveillance, And The Paralyzed Gun ‘Debate’”
On Becoming More ‘Confessional’ In The Classroom
A few weeks ago, in the course of a conversation with a colleague here at Brooklyn College, I remarked that over the years I had become more ‘confessional’ in my classroom interactions with my students. When gently pressed to explain what I meant, I said that I had become more unguarded there, in that space–inContinue reading “On Becoming More ‘Confessional’ In The Classroom”
An ISIS Communique For Our Times
From: Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi To: All Jihadi Brothers In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. My warriors, after Paris, much work remains to be done. But we have many new recruits. They are infidels, but they have to come to our aid, they will do our work with us. They willContinue reading “An ISIS Communique For Our Times”
The Post-Apocalyptic World Of The War Refugee
A year or so ago, in writing about classroom discussions centering on Cormac McCarthy‘s The Road, I had noted that the homeless–whom the Man and the Boy most resemble–live in a post-apocalyptic world of their own: The central characters in The Road are homeless folk….the homeless among us live in such a post-apocalyptic world now:Continue reading “The Post-Apocalyptic World Of The War Refugee”
On Not Celebrating Steven Salaita’s Settlement With UIUC
I cannot bring myself to celebrate the news of Steven Salaita‘s settlement with the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (UIUC). The reasons for this are fairly straightforward–as noted in a petition now circulating: the crucial legal issues at the heart of his dismissal remain unresolved, and his job has not been reinstated. Shortly afterContinue reading “On Not Celebrating Steven Salaita’s Settlement With UIUC”
No One ‘Conquers’ An Eight-Thousander
Despite the dozens, if not hundreds, of mountaineering tales that talk about the ‘conquest’ of mountains, especially the fourteen eight-thousanders that are the world’s tallest mountains, no one ‘conquers’ them. Not the mountaineers who climbed them first, who ‘deflowered’ their ‘virginity,’; not the ones who climb them by new routes, each selected to be harderContinue reading “No One ‘Conquers’ An Eight-Thousander”
School Discipline And Socialization For The Carceral State
Schools are a buffer zone, artfully, strategically, placed between zones of dysfunction–the homes of ‘broken’ families, populated by the wrong ethnicity and racial category, which produce criminality and social pathology–and the rest of society. Here, a net may be cast, trawling through the swarms of schoolchildren, catching the bad, the misbehaved, the unrepentant repeat offendersContinue reading “School Discipline And Socialization For The Carceral State”
Samir Chopra 