eruthros

So remember how Johannes Mehserle, a white BART police officer, shot and killed Oscar Grant, an unarmed black man, last year in Oakland?

And remember how a couple months ago, the jury returned a verdict of involuntary manslaughter? And tacked a "gun enhancement change" on top of that? Rather than the second-degree murder or voluntary manslaughter charges the prosecutor was asking for?

Well now Mehserle has been sentenced! To two whole years in prison (minus time served, of course). The shortest possible sentence. Yes. Two fucking years. Why?

Because the judge rejected the gun enhancement charge on the grounds that the jury must not have understood it.

Oh, and also because he's concerned about everyone's tone:

"The judge said he received more than 1,000 letters from the public advocating the maximum sentence of 14 years for Mehserle and that he was concerned by their anger." (from a different Bay Citizen article on the trial)

ETA: Oscar Grant Sr, Oscar Grant's grandfather, said: "Knowing how the judicial system in this country works, I was not surprised. Two years is just a slap in the face." (from sfgate.com's article on protests in Oakland)

No kidding.

ETA2: Scenes from the protests in Oakland tonight by Oakland North. According to the SF Chronicle, 500 police and Homeland Security officers are blocking off the 250 person protest.

Here is a thing that makes me really sad: this sign [note: link contains image of Holocaust victims], at the anti-health care march in Washington D.C. today. Which, okay, is horrifying enough as a piece of political rhetoric, if you presume that the people in question don't believe in it, it's horrifying enough as a parallel between mostly-white mostly-Christian Americans who don't want health care and, you know, the torture and deaths of Jewish and Romani and homosexual folks, but what really horrifies and depresses me is the idea that the person holding that sign, the person waving that sign around, might not just be doing it as political rhetoric, might actually believe in that comparison. How horrifying is it to think about the mostly-white mostly-Christian mostly-conservative anti-health care folks imagining themselves to be the same as Jews and Romani and queer folks in Nazi Germany? To think about what they must believe to make this comparison in all seriousness? To make the comparison between socialized medicine and genocide? I am just "..."

Also, linking to the above at Think Progress reminded me of how much I hate reading comments on progressive blogs. I skim the front pages of a number of progressive blogs, and I usually don't read the comments -- there are so few blogs that think about intersectionality, that really try to keep out the misogyny and the homophobia and the transmisogyny and the racism and the ablism. I read the comments on this post about a racist sign in an Georgia bar a while ago, though, and just -- this is exactly it, this is exactly the problem. Here are some things I learned about the TRUTH about racism from reading comments, which I have put ( behind a cut because they hit just about every -ism ever )

Remember how two weeks ago I said you should buy Emma Bull's book? Please disregard that post.

This is going to come out of left field for some of y'all who haven't seen the context. The brief summary is: Avalon’s Willow posted a critique of Elizabeth Bear’s description of how to write "The Other." Elizabeth Bear said it was valid, and that her lj was a safe space; she then let people leave horrible comments in her lj using all the classics from how to suppress discussions of racism -- completely failing to maintain that safe space. Elizabeth Bear's friends (including Emma Bull) piled on Avalon's Willow (and others), there and in other lj threads, dismissing her concerns, dismissing her writing, dismissing her reading, calling for her credentials.

You can read Emma Bull (coffeeem)'s attempt at complete dismissal here, and throughout that comment thread. To pull sentences out of context: "I can't give a lot of weight to a critique of a book and its author that's based on a shallow reading of the book, that doesn't take into account all the text, but substitutes the reader's own expected subtext for what's actually there." ... "But I don't want to go as far as to say that an opinion based on a shallow reading and a reaction to cultural injustice is as insightful as an opinion based on careful consideration of the text."

How to suppress discussions of racism 101. coffeeem offers no proof that Avalon's Willow's reading of the book is flawed; she uses her authority to dismiss it instead, and not incidentally to deflect conversation from the content of AW's post, to AW's credentials and AW's emotions and AW's tone. When someone points out to her the privilege inherent in deciding what are deep and shallow readings, she deflects again and says that her questioners are clearly opposed to studying literature -- again, by fiat, by defining terms without allowing question. And in doing so, she completely changed the direction of the conversation, completely dismissed the original post, and hurt people. A lot of people.

I still think that Bone Dance is a good book, but I can't stand the idea that I told you guys to buy a new copy, to send money to the person who began what became a meme and turned a conversation into something uglier, who first declared by fiat that a person of color's reading of a book as racist was shallow and wrong and could be immediately dismissed. She hurt people, and she derailed the conversation to make it -- once again -- all about white people, and she has not apologized. Please don't buy her books. If you want to read them, there are libraries and used book stores and friends who will loan them to you.

I didn't recommend any of these folks' books, and I haven’t read any of their work myself, but these are the other published authors who made similar statements, who continue to ignore the hurt they have done, who have made it clear that they want cookies for being anti-racist while still being racist: Elizabeth Bear (matociquala), W*ll Sh*tt*rly, and Sarah Monette (truepenny -- she has sort-of apologized, but her apology is not great). Other publishing-related people include Patrick Neilson Hayden (Tor editor) and mac_stone, editor of an e-zine. And probably others whose posts or comments I missed, or whose lj names I didn't link to author names.

For a better-written post on the topic of the published authors who have shown their asses, see chopchica here. For the comprehensive link roundup to read from the beginning, missing only the posts that were deleted or flocked after the fact, see rydra_wong's amazing compilation here. Commentary on matociquala's most recent post here, as matociquala has been banning people who call her out.

Oh, and: while we're on the subject of authors showing their asses? Robin McKinley, don’t say this shit. You do not get to decide what Barack Obama’s racial identity is, and you do not get to declare him white.

ETA: More on EBear, Emma Bull, and others here; more on the problems of the facile apology here.

ETA 2: Aaaand Theresa Neilson Hayden shows her ass here.

Includes spoilers for Kindred parts I and II ( behind this cut here )

I was going to do another round of quotes from right-wing commentators -- and believe me, there are some real doozies on the National Review today -- but then I hit Savage Nation, and it depressed me so much I just couldn't deal with attempting to make a long post and all that.

I mean. He uses his "background" as an anthropologist to explain that "smallpox in a blanket" is too good for Arab nations. ( The quote in context. )

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