When I was younger, I had a trouble making cousin who got suspended a lot. One of her syblings revealed to me that she had been offered a coveted seat in the gifted and talented program at her school. I was shocked.
She got into physical altercations with her own family all the time. She was mouthy, and fast. I enjoyed watching her interact with anyone who tried to tell her what to do. It was like watching police chases. What mayhem will she cause next?
News that she would be in a program I was proud to be in at my school was jaw dropping. She was all but allergic to homework. If you needed class to go off the rails so you didn’t have to take a quiz today, she was your girl. I never doubted her intelligence. Would she be able to simmer down enough that her classmates could learn? Or would she use her new found power in the gifted classes, to further her own agenda?
Her sister turned to me as she thrashed about and whispered, “She tests well.” I just shook my head. Thankful that we didn't go to the same school.
Pardon me. Let my black geek flag fly for a moment. They mentioned Minority Report in a senate confirmation hearing for Sessions to become Attorney General! The Republicans mentioned it only as a movie. Omitting to give credit to its true author Philip K. Dick. Republicans are mixing science fiction allegory with politics.
The reference was used of course to criticize the outgoing Attorney General and the outgoing administration. Republicans watched the movie and understood at least somewhat the basic principles put forth in the book and subsequently the film. That's something...I guess.
Specifically there were criticisms about Choke Point. Choke Point’s intention as I understood it was to constrict or choke the flow of money by illegal businesses and protect consumers from predatory lending (payday loans and such). Chokepoint’s selection of who to target wasn't necessarily based on a proven track record but on suspicion of who might likely be an abuser (porn stuff, lottery stuff, credit repair services etc.). Then hold banks responsible for doing business with them.
It's not legal was the outcome. Rather going after fradulent or predatory businesses in this fashion was not the legal way to do it. Some say legitimate businesses were hurt by this.
So innocent businesses were being harmed by a blanket policy.
Does anybody remember stop and frisk? Nice to know that corporations have more rights than a brown person walking the streets. The grievances of companies being violated is quickly remedied, while we debate the violation of my person based on assumptions.
Black people's actual right to personal sovereignty = Fair Game (another Philip K. Dick story).
One of the people tasked with asking questions likened the Choke Point practice to the use of precogs in the film Minority Report. Using knowledge of the future and holding someone accountable for what they haven't done yet, but might do.
When I think about this principle hard enough we do it all the time. Personally we might put our bags in the trunk or cover them with jackets in any area we feel we could be targeted. I have found this practice crosses color lines. It could be some place as innocent as a parking deck near shopping areas. It could be how we perceive the socioeconomic (translation: poor and an assumption of being uneducated; translation decoded: us brown and black folk) status of an area.
Mandatory minimum sentencing was just that, wasn't it? You've been convicted of crime once and we feel or forsee you getting out and doing some bad shit again. To curtail this, regardless of the circumstance or your age or whatever, we give you a heavy sentence now at your first conviction. Then three strikes and you're in jail until the end of your days on this earth. Sessions said that mandatory minimums have been effective and that we should ‘slow down’ before getting rid of them.
My dad used to tell this joke. A policeman stops a man for not stopping at a stop sign. The man says but I slowed down. The policeman pulls the man out of his car and beats him with his baton and asked the man, “Do you want me to slow down or stop?” I digress.
On the flip side, we used that same logic on Southern states in the Voting Rights Act. You've been on the naughty list for attempting to deny minorities their right to vote. So any changes you make have to be submitted for approval by other folks before you can use it nefariously against the votes of us darkies and the like.
We don't have precogs. Yet the minute these states were allowed to alter the rules to restrain the voices of the poor and brown, they did.
North Carolina, I'm looking at you.
I say hey we gave these states a crack at it on their own. It didn't work out. Put them back on the naughty list and we'll revisit the issue…..in another 50 years. But let's all remember that's 2 strikes now.:-)
When other Republicans were defending Sessions’ acceptance of awards by some Klan-ish organizations, one Republican made a joke about how many Representatives accepted so many awards they couldn't be sure of the affiliations or statements of all these groups. Then they chuckled.
I discovered rich old white men laughing at racial bias who have the power of enacting and perhaps enforcing the laws of this land makes my hands tremble and my eyes well with tears.
It's only day one and Sessions dodged a lot of hard questions that were at the moment hypothetical but in a couple of weeks the new AG will most likely be tasked with taking on. These hard questions were often about being at odds with the President-elect.
Sessions would never be my first choice.
Unfortunately, day one proves he tests well.
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