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Volume
10 Issue 23…Dedicated
to the Dialogue on Race…June 8, 2007
Hood Notes
Minority Report
(2002)
Based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, Minority Report is the 2002 movie
directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Cruise as Chief John Anderton.
Set in the year 2054 AD in Washington DC, Minority Report presents a real law
enforcement dilemma with increasing significance in our post-911 world, given
the way terrorists plots are foiled before they happen by US Justice Department
officials in fighting the 'war on terror.'
In Minority Report, Chief Anderton heads up an elite squad known as Pre-Crime.
At this time, crime is practically non-existent thanks to advanced technology
based on precognition. The technology involves three genetically altered
humans, two males and one female, called Pre-Cogs; they possess special powers
to predict future crimes. Floating in a pool of milky liquid, the Pre-Cogs are
electronically linked, and when they share visions of a future crime, their
report is transmitted to the Pre-Crime Division, which employs more technology
that allows officers to see and analyze the Pre-Cog vision.
Working with clues provided by the Pre-Cogs' vision, officers enjoy a high rate
of success in apprehending prospective criminals that are tried and placed in a
state of sleep using a device called a "halo." Thousands have
suffered this unusual fate, even though pre-crime is being used on a trial
basis and is scheduled to be voted on in the near future.
After losing his son to a crime six years earlier, Anderton is dedicated to the
project, until the pre-cogs report a vision of him murdering Leo Crow, a man he
does not know. Like the pre-criminals he has diligently chased down and
captured, Anderton runs and is pursued by his fellow officers.
On a mission to prove his innocence, Anderton learns that the pre-cogs do not
always agree. Sometimes, the more gifted member of the group - the female -
sees an alternative outcome. Her alternate vision, called the Minority Report,
is not seen by the pre-crime division. Anderton must retrieve the Minority
Report and solve the pre-crime case against him.
Should Anderton succeed, it could mean the end of pre-crime, even though it has
drastically reduced criminal activity. However, there is the dilemma of
arresting and imprisoning people for crimes they have not committed. This
science fiction thriller definitely has contemporary implications. If you have
not seen it, rent it today; you will not be disappointed. If you have already
seen Minority Report, viewing it again would not be a waste of time.
US Social Forum
Thousands of community and grassroots activists engaged in a multiplicity of
struggles will be meeting in Atlanta for the first US Social Forum. From June
27 to July 1, there will hundreds of workshops, cultural events, marches and
protests, sporting activities and informal discussions and jam sessions with
the Civic Center, downtown hotels and public spaces serving as meeting places.
Hundreds of volunteers are needed to help with registration, translation,
logistics, medical and childcare. Please consider offering your time and skills
to this fantastic event. Go to www.ussf2007.org for
information on volunteering, registration and a list of the workshops. Or, call
404.586.0460 ext. 32.
By phone, the Dark Knight-Batman/White Ninja/Zorro was informed that he was on
his grandma's sh*t list. When the pair next met, grandma hugged him and said
she loved him even though he was still sh*t-listed for his poor academic
performance this year. Not to be outdone, the Dark One/Ninja/Zorro hugged his
grandma tightly and whispered in her ear, "That's 'cause I'm your
favorite." This declaration left his poor grandma speechless.
Ledbetter v. Goodyear
Tire & Rubber Co., Inc.
Until her retirement in 1998, Lilly Ledbetter worked for nineteen years at the
Goodyear Tire and Rubber plant in Gadsden, Alabama. She was the only woman
among a particular group of seventeen managers at that facility. Shortly after
retiring, Ledbetter filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC) alleging unequal pay for equal work.
A federal jury agreed that the 40% lower salary that Ledbetter received smacked
of flagrant discrimination and awarded plaintiff $3 million in back pay and
damages; the trial jury reduced the award to $360,000. On appeal to the 11th US
Circuit in Atlanta, Georgia, the court ruled Ledbetter failed to timely file
her complaint within 180 days of the original discrimination as required under
Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
On May 29, the Supreme Court handed down its 5-4 decision upholding the Appeals
Court's ruling. Clearly, the Court's ruling ignores stare decisis, since
previous equal pay cases followed EEOC's pay accrual rule, which treated each
pay check as an individual instance of discrimination. Thus, each pay period
restarted the 180-day window for filing a complaint.
Outraged by the narrow majority ruling, Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg,
who was joined by Associate Justices David Souter, Stephen Breyer and John Paul
Stevens in expressing dissent, called on Congress to immediately enact
legislation to reverse the decision. Senator Hilary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) has
already proposed legislation to reverse this decision.
And, reverse this decision it should, because in reality, it is unreasonable to
expect employees, particularly in the private sector, to have access to the pay
received by co-workers. Yet, in crafting the majority opinion, Associate
Justice Samuel Alito asininely wrote, "Ledbetter should have filed an EEOC
charge within 180 days after each allegedly discriminatory pay." Joining
Alito in legislating from the bench were the other members of the Court's most
radical right wing group, i.e., Chief Justice John Roberts, Antonin Scalia,
Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.
Clarence Thomas: A
Black Conservative
The second child and first son of Leola Williams and M. C. Thomas, Clarence
Thomas was born on June 23, 1948 in Pin Point, Georgia, a former plantation and
dirt poor community south of Savannah. At age two, Thomas' father abandoned the
family; his mother supported Thomas and his sibling by working as a maid with
the aid of charitable donations from their Baptist Church. After the family's
home burned down and their mother remarried, Thomas and his brother went to
live in Savannah with their grandfather Myers Anderson, an ardent Catholic,
loyal Democrat, entrepreneur and active member of the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Through his flourishing business delivering wood, coal, ice, and heating oil
from the back of a pick-up truck, Anderson provided a comfortable home for the
boys. He enrolled them in St. Benedict the Moor, an all-black grammar school
run by white nuns. After school, the boys worked for their grandfather making
fuel deliveries. Because his grandfather wanted him to become a priest, Thomas
left his black parochial high school after two years to attend St. John Vianney
Minor Seminary, a Catholic boarding school just outside Savannah. In 1967,
Thomas entered Immaculate Conception Seminary in northwestern Missouri to
prepare for the priesthood. However, he quit as a result of the prejudice he
encountered there, the last straw came when a fellow student rejoiced on
hearing the news that Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., had been slain.
Thomas worked for a while before entering Holy Cross (1968), a Jesuit college
in Worcester, Massachusetts, as part of its affirmative action program. He
received an A.B., cum laude, from Holy Cross College (1971) and J.D. from Yale
Law School (1974). He was admitted to the Missouri bar (1974), and served as an
Assistant Attorney General of Missouri (1974 to 1977). As an attorney with the
St. Louis-based chemical company Monsanto (1977-1979), Thomas worked primarily
to shepherd pesticides through government registration. A legislative assistant
to Senator John Danforth (1979 - 1981), he became active in the black
conservative movement, which believes that welfare, busing, affirmative action
programs and government set-asides make blacks dependent on government charity
and do more harm than good. He did not view integration as a solution. Instead,
he reasoned, blacks should help themselves through education, enterprise, work
and self-reliance.
Thomas worked as assistant secretary for civil rights in the U.S. Department of
Education (1981-1982) and chairman of the federal Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC) (1982-1989). During his tenure at EEOC, Thomas earned a
reputation as black conservative who opposed minority preference programs. As
the chief enforcer of federal laws against discrimination in the workplace,
Thomas generally supported the Reagan administration's opposition to the use of
numerical goals and timetables for bringing discrimination lawsuits against
companies. Under Thomas, the EEOC largely abandoned the use of class action
suits that relied on statistical evidence to prove widespread discrimination at
corporations, preferring to focus on individual cases instead.
Thomas was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
(1989) and took his oath of office on March 12, 1990. In July, 1991, President
George H.W. Bush nominated Thomas to the Supreme Court to replace retiring
Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first black American to serve on the Court. Many
civil rights groups, notably the NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus,
declared that they would not support Thomas because of his opposition to the
traditional civil rights agenda.
In October, 1991, after his confirmation was practically assured, the Senate
Judiciary Committee reopened its confirmation hearings to examine charges
brought by Anita Hill, a University of Oklahoma law professor. Hill alleged
that Thomas had subjected her to sexual harassment while she was an EEOC
employee in the 1980s. Adamantly rejecting Hill's accounts of his alleged
misconduct, Thomas described the nationally televised proceedings as a
"high-tech lynching for uppity blacks" engineered by liberal
opponents. However, on October 15, 1991, the full Senate confirmed Thomas by a
vote of 52 to 48, the closest confirmation vote in the twentieth century.
Taking his seat, Thomas aligned himself with Antonin Scalia, forming the
Court's most conservative group.
Although born a Baptist and raised a Catholic, Thomas divorced his first wife
and remarried. He regularly attends an Episcopal church and has a son from his
first marriage. (Sources: www.supremecourthistory.org/,
http://encarta.msn.com/, and www.aaregistry.com)
On Uncle Clarence!
By Dot
Those who cannot remember the past
are condemned to repeat it. George Santayana
As the person chosen to replace Thurgood Marshall
on the United State's highest court, Clarence Thomas has been a colossal
disappointment to the black community. Based on his written and oral opinions,
his views on civil, human and equal rights are the opposite of Marshall's. In
fact, Thomas seems hellbent on eradicating stare decisis established in these
areas during Marshall's tenure, a period marked by a US that appeared more
willing to extend some rights and constitutional protections to blacks.
Many in the black community have labelled Thomas
an Uncle Tom, a reference to black men that bend over backwards to appease
whites, often at the expense of blacks. Indeed, Thomas calls himself a
conservative, which generally refers to maintaining the status quo. How can a
black man, who knows his history, want to maintain his status of inferiority?
Based on his actions on the bench to date, Uncle Tom fits Clarence Thomas to a
"T."
Thomas has been consistently wrong on racial
discrimination cases, showing he can be more conservative than the Court's
standard bearer of right wing jurisprudence Antonin Scalia. Asininely, he was
the lone dissenter in Johnson v.
California in which the other eight justices ruled California had
made it difficult for defendants to claim racial bias in jury selection. In Miller-El vs. Dretke, the death
row inmate was granted a new trial after the court ruled Texas prosecutors
eliminated potential black jurors because of their alleged propensity not to
seek the death penalty. Uncle Clarence dissented; he believed prosecutors found
reasons other than race to dismiss prospective black jurors.
When the Court ruled in Hudson v. McMillian that
excessive force used by a prison guard may violate the Constitution, even if it
does not result in serious injury to a prisoner, Uncle Clarence dissented,
arguing the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment
"should not be turned into a national code of prison regulation." He
has argued in death penalty cases that a prisoner's poor background and
troubled upbringing are irrelevant, warning that consideration of such
handicaps by judges could lead to arbitrary leniency and might result in
discrimination against black defendants. And, then there is Bush v. Gore in
which Uncle Clarence sided with the 5-4 majority that put George W. Bush into
the Oval Office.
Disgruntled wants to know:
Suppose a group of friends and acquaintances vent their frustrations over
the direction in which the country is headed. People throw out all kinds of
hypotheticals. Someone in the group decides this conversation should be
reported to the authorities. The Justice Department takes an interest, uses
wiretaps and infiltrates the group. Its agent, a provocateur, like those used
by J. Edgar Hoover's Co-Intel-Pro to kill black power and the Civil Rights
Movement, works for years trying to incite the group to carry out a 'terrorist'
plot. Before any weapons are acquired or plot carried out, the Justice
Department arrests members of the group. Under these circumstances, what crime
has been committed?
Disgruntled feels:
Oxymoronic! It seems George Bush has revised his compassionate
conservatism. Of late, his public appearances have entertained a host of
subjects that make him appear humane, i.e., aid to fight AIDS in Africa,
sanctions on Darfur to prevent genocide, a change of heart on global climate
change, etc. It is difficult to imagine the man is sincere about wanting to
save the planet when he is willing to kill all the life on it. Moreover, as far
as conservatism goes, he has presided over the largest increase in the federal
debt in the nation's history and embraced preemptive war as a legitimate
foreign policy. When he first campaigned on compassionate conservatism, many of
us labelled it an oxymoron. Given the last six years of lies, mounting debt,
death, destruction and official corruption, it is definitely oxymoronic.
Disgruntled says:
While the high price of a gallon of gasoline has made headlines of late, it is
certainly not the only necessity that has climbed in price over the past two
years or more. In fact, food has gone through the roof. Every week, the grocery
bill increases. Rent is high, even though home prices may be declining
somewhat. It's rough out here and getting rougher since wages are not keeping
up with the rising prices of the goods and services we purchase. The government
may not want to call what the nation is experiencing inflation, but the facts
on the ground says the US is experiencing an inflationary cycle.
Mailbox: E-Mails, Faxes and
Telephone Calls
Email hal038@yahoo.com
US debt could trigger dollar collapse, UN warns...By Desha Priya...The United
States dollar is facing imminent collapse in the face of an unsustainable debt,
the UN has warned. US debt, which has deepened to well over $3 trillion, might
turn out to be unsustainable in the rest of 2007 or next, putting further
downward pressure on the US dollar, according to Rob Vos, the Director of the
Development Policy and Analysis Division of the Department of Economic and
Social Affairs (DESA). He pointed out that since its peak in 2002, the dollar
had depreciated vis-à-vis the major currencies by some 35 percent and by
25 per cent against a broader range of other currencies. Vos made these
comments at the launch of the 2007 World Economic Situation and Prospects
report midyear update.
Email www.BBC.com US Attorney Resigns Following
Conyers' Request for BBC Documents...by Greg Palast...Tim Griffin, formerly
right hand man to Karl Rove, resigned Thursday as US Attorney for Arkansas
hours after BBC Television 'Newsnight' reported that Congressman John Conyers
requested the network's evidence on Griffin's involvement in 'caging voters.'
Greg Palast, reporting for BBC Newsnight, obtained a series of confidential
emails from the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign. In these emails, Griffin, then the
GOP Deputy Communications Director, transmitted so-called 'caging lists' of
voters to state party leaders. Experts have concluded the caging lists were
designed for a mass challenge of voters' right to cast ballots. The caging
lists were heavily weighted with minority voters including homeless
individuals, students and soldiers sent overseas.
Conyers, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee investigating the firing of
US Attorneys, indicated to the BBC that he thought it unlikely that Griffin
could carry out this massive 'caging' operation without the knowledge of White
House Deputy Chief of Staff Rove.
Email www.legitgov.org/...JFK airport plot 'a
US setup'...The four suspects in an alleged terror plot to bomb a New York
airport were set up in an elaborate plan by the US Republican party to retain
hold of the White House, the daughter of an arrested suspect claimed on
Tuesday. Huda Ibrahiim, daughter of Amir Kareem Ibrahiim, one of four men
accused of plotting acts of terrorism against the United States, said US
justice officials had engaged in entrapment in breaking up the alleged plot...
She also said her father was afraid to fly, was not computer literate and does
not use the Internet.
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