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patriotsnet · 3 years

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How Democrats Can Call The Republicans Bluff On Impeachment

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How Democrats Can Call The Republicans Bluff On Impeachment

Trump Administration Will Release All Vaccine Doses Adopting A Policy Proposed By The Biden Team

Republicans slams Democrats for ‘divisive’ impeachment vote after Pence rules out 25th Amendment

The Trump administration will recommend providing a wider distribution of a coronavirus vaccine, just days after aides to President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. said his administration would make a similar adjustment by using more of the already procured vaccines for initial doses.

Mr. Bidens team has said it would aim to distribute the doses more quickly at federally run vaccination sites at high school gyms, sports stadiums and mobile units to reach high-risk populations.

The Trump administration plans to release the shots that had been held back and aims to make the vaccine available to everyone over 65 in an attempt to accelerate lagging distribution.

The doses had been held back to ensure that those who receive a first dose had the second and final inoculation available when it was needed. The change means all existing doses will be sent to states to provide initial inoculations. Second doses are to be provided by new waves of manufacturing.

The idea of using existing vaccine supplies for first doses has raised objections from some doctors and researchers, who say studies of the vaccines effectiveness proved only that they worked to prevent illness when using two doses.

The agency is expected to announce the new guidelines at a briefing at noon Eastern on Tuesday, according to an official briefed on the plans who was not authorized to speak publicly about the change. Axios earlier reported the new guidelines.

Fake Subpoenas For A Fake Impeachment Inquiry

To fully grasp the fraud being perpetrated on the entire country by congressional Democrats, you must go back to how this impeachment farce began last September. Doing a real impeachment investigation with real subpoenas that had real legal teeth would have required a full House vote. But thats not what happened.; Instead, House speaker Nancy Pelosi merely announced that an impeachment inquiry was beginning without;the full House having voted.

Not only is Obstruction of Congress a make-believe impeachment charge, the subpoenas sent out by Schiff and Nadlers House committees werent even real. The Democrats knew all along the subpoenas they were issuing were not properly authorized, and no one was breaking the law by not responding to them. None of those subpoenas had any legal force and Democrats managed to successfully hide this fact from their base.

When House committee sent one of these fake subpoenas to Charles Kupperman, he took it before a federal judge so the judge could rule on this exact issue. Was this a real subpoena with legal force and did Kupperman have to comply with it? What happened when Democrats who had issued that subpoena learned what Kupperman was doing?; They immediately rushed to the courtroom to withdraw the fake subpoena before the judge could rule on its validity, then they asked for the judge to dismiss the lawsuit, ensuring he would never rule on the validity of the contested subpoena.; That also is very revealing.

Tell Gop Senators To Call The Democrats’ Bluff By Faxing Them Now

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi held the articles of impeachment passed against President Trump for more than a month. She lost her gamble demanding Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell allow new witnesses at trial. McConnell refused to “do House Democrats’ homework for them” by enabling an extension of their investigation. That should have been done BEFORE their impeachment vote.

But after Pelosi finally relented and began the process of sending the articles to the Upper Chamber, a small group of Senate Republicans;pitched McConnell on the idea of “witness reciprocity.” The basic premise is that if Democrats get to call a trial witness, the GOP does, too.

Recommended Reading: When Did Republicans And Democrats Switch Platforms

Impeachment Is An ‘act Of Political Vengeance’ Trump Lawyer Says

“At no point was the president informed the vice president was in any danger,” Michael van der Veen argued, adding that there is “nothing at all in record on this point.” Van der Veen also accused the House impeachment managers of failing to do their due diligence on this issue.

“What the president did know is that there was a violent riot happening at the Capitol,” van der Veen said. “That’s why he repeatedly called via tweet and via video for the riots to stop, to be peaceful, to respect Capitol police and law enforcement and to commit no violence and go home.”

But van der Veen’s argument left senators with additional questions.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who says he is undecided on whether he’ll vote to convict Trump, asked for more details regarding Tuberville’s account of the call with Trump and his tweet railing against Pence.

“Does this show that President Trump was tolerant of the intimidation of Vice President Pence?” Cassidy asked.

But again, van der Veen disputed the sequence of events, calling discussion of Tuberville’s call “hearsay.”

“I have a problem with the facts in the question because I have no idea,” van der Veen responded.

Cassidy told reporters later that he didn’t think his question got a good answer.

Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman, hailed by many for his heroism during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, participates in a the dress rehearsal for Inauguration Day.hide caption

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“History will wait for our decision.”

What’s The Debate About

Mrs Pelosi affirmed on Tuesday that there is no need for a full chamber vote as her party’s probe proceeds.

“There’s no requirement that we have a vote, so at this time we will not be having a vote and I’m very pleased with the thoughtfulness of our caucus with the path that we are on,” she told reporters.

But Republicans, who control the Senate, where any impeachment measure would go to trial, disagree.

Trump impeachment inquiry: The short, medium and long story

Citing past impeachments, the president’s supporters have called for a full House vote to formally start the inquiry and to give Republican lawmakers more powers, like being able to issue subpoenas for their own witnesses and schedule hearings.

As it stands, several House committees, all chaired by Democrats, are investigating the president, looking for evidence to support impeachment. The White House has refused to co-operate.

“We’re not here to call bluffs. We’re here to find the truth, to uphold the Constitution of the United States,” Mrs Pelosi said on Tuesday.

“This is not a game for us. This is deadly serious, and we’re on a path that is getting us to a path to truth and timetable that respects our Constitution.”

Also Check: Do Republicans Or Democrats Give More To Charity

Trump Impeachment Goes To Senate Testing His Sway Over Gop

WASHINGTON House Democrats delivered the impeachment case against Donald Trump to the Senate late Monday for the start of his historic trial, but Republican senators were easing off their criticism of the former president and shunning calls to convict him over the deadly siege at the U.S. Capitol.

Its an early sign of Trumps enduring sway over the party.

The nine House prosecutors carried the sole impeachment charge of incitement of insurrection across the Capitol, making a solemn and ceremonial march to the Senate along the same halls the rioters ransacked just weeks ago. But Republican denunciations of Trump have cooled since the Jan. 6 riot. Instead Republicans are presenting a tangle of legal arguments against the legitimacy of the trial and questioning whether Trumps repeated demands to overturn Joe Bidens election really amounted to incitement.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, asked if Congress starts holding impeachment trials of former officials, whats next: Could we go back and try President Obama?

Besides, he suggested, Trump has already been held to account. One way in our system you get punished is losing an election.

It is a critical moment in American history, Coons said Sunday in an interview.

Trump Lawyer: His Call To Georgia Officials To ‘find’ Votes Was Taken Out Of Context

Trump’s lawyers largely sidestepped Trump’s false claims of election fraud. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., asked during the question-and-answer session: “Are the prosecutors right when they claim that Trump was telling a big lie, or in your judgment did Trump actually win the election?”

Trump lawyer Michael van der Veen shot back, “My judgment? Who asked that?”

“I did,” Sanders replied.

“My judgment is irrelevant,” van der Veen said.

“You represent the president of the United States!” Sanders yelled back before Sen. Patrick Leahy, the presiding officer, gaveled the chamber back to order.

Trump’s rhetoric about widespread fraud and a stolen election was false, dismissed by many courts stemming from dozens of lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign and allies across several key states.

Read Also: Who Is Right Republicans Or Democrats

Republican Leaders Misjudged Jan 6 Committee

Addison Mitchell McConnellLindsey Graham: Police need ‘to take a firm line’ with Sept. 18 rally attendeesManchin keeps Washington guessing on what he wantsCEOs urge Congress to raise debt limit or risk ‘avoidable crisis’MORE , the two Republican congressional leaders who are into power and party, made a big political mistake last spring in opposing a bipartisan commission to investigate the mob assault on the Capitol.

McConnell pressured enough Republican Senators so the measure couldn’t get the 60 votes necessary for passage. McCarthy ludicrously claimed he was opposed to any inquiry that didn’t investigate left wing activists who had nothing to do with the violent Jan. 6 attack intended to prevent Congress from certifying Joe BidenJoe BidenTrump endorses challenger in Michigan AG race On The Money: Democrats get to the hard partHealth Care GOP attorneys general warn of legal battle over Biden’s vaccine mandateMORE‘s presidential victory.

Neither man anticipated that House Speaker Nancy PelosiNancy PelosiOn The Money: Democrats get to the hard partBiden discusses agenda with Schumer, Pelosi ahead of pivotal weekStefanik in ad says Democrats want ‘permanent election insurrection’MORE would outsmart them, maneuvering a select House committee with two prominent Republicans who are more interested in finding out all that happened that terrible day.

The context and totality of Republican actions this year tell the story.

Why Won’t Pelosi Pull The Trigger

GOP lawmaker: Democrats turned impeachment into a âbig political fiascoâ

With almost every Democrat in the House on board, Nancy Pelosi has the votes to pass an impeachment inquiry resolution. So why hasn’t she pulled the trigger?

The House speaker might be trying to protect the handful of holdout Democrats or view the move as a waste of time. She might also be afraid that a House vote would encourage Republicans to press for the kinds of investigatory powers that congressional minority parties had in past impeachment proceedings.

The last thing Democrats want is congressional Republicans subpoenaing Joe or Hunter Biden in an attempt to shift the focus away from Donald Trump.

Ms Pelosi could also be hoping that the longer the investigation grinds on, the greater the chance Democrats could uncover that damning bit of evidence that breaks Republicans ranks. She may believe that it would be easier for Republicans to support impeachment if they weren’t on the record voting against an investigation.

Recommended Reading: What Is The Lapel Pin The Republicans Are Wearing

Jamie Raskin Is Leading The Effort To Impeach Trump While Mourning The Recent Death Of His Son

A day after Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, buried his 25-year-old son, he survived the mob attack on the Capitol. He is now leading the impeachment effort against President Trump for inciting the siege.

Mr. Raskins son, Tommy Raskin, a 25-year-old Harvard University law student, social justice activist, animal lover and poet, died by suicide on New Years Eve. He left his parents an apology, with instructions: Please look after each other, the animals, and the global poor for me.

As he found himself hiding with House colleagues from a violent mob, Mr. Raskin feared for the safety of a surviving daughter who had accompanied him to the Capitol to witness the counting of electoral votes to seal Joseph R. Biden Jr.s victory.

Within hours, Mr. Raskin was at work drafting an article of impeachment with the mob braying in his ear and his sons final plea on his mind.

Ill spend the rest of my life trying to live up to those instructions, the Maryland Democrat said in an interview on Monday, reading aloud the farewell note as he reflected on his familys grief and the confluence of events. But what we are doing this week is looking after our beloved republic.

The slightly rumpled former constitutional law professor has been preparing his entire life for this moment. That it should come just as he is suffering the most unimaginable loss a parent can bear has touched his colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

Trump’s Defense Closes Its Case By Saying Impeachment Trial Is A ‘complete Charade’

Manager Rep. Joe Neguse of Colorado rebutted the defense’s argument that Trump has been denied due process.

“We had a full presentation of evidence, adversarial presentations, motions. The president was invited to testify. He declined. The president was invited to provide exculpatory evidence. He declined. You can’t claim there’s no due process when you won’t participate in the process,” he said.

He noted that impeachment is separate and distinct from the criminal justice system.

“Why would the constitution include the impeachment power at all, if the criminal justice system serves as a suitable alternative once a President leaves office?” he asked. “It wouldn’t.”

Neguse also sought to address an allegation raised by defense attorneys, that the impeachment trial was rooted in hate. He turned to a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

“This trial is not born from hatred,” said Neguse. “Far from it. It’s born from love of country. Our country. Our desire to maintain it. Our desire to see America at its best.”

On Saturday morning, senators voted to hear from Republican Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler as a witness in the impeachment trial. Later, an agreement allowed a statement by her into the record without calling her.hide caption

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The Senate impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump won’t be hearing from witnesses after all.

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psychologist in Denmark enrico cappelletto

Everyone's for corporate and private liability to incorporate financial recompense and/or jail terms especially for those at the highest entrusted by us to always do what's right. We must take care tough. To level our sights only on CEOs or CFOs is to miss the important perpetrators by aiming too low.

Like us, CEOs have bosses too. They report the Board of Directors. Granted, Boards have shareholders to whom they're ultimately accountable, but in practice, the buck stops at the Board level where ethical decisions - bad or good - are made.

In the book, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, Jim Collins and Jerry Porras speak to the present issue by highlighting the [Board's], "explicit emphasis on Fair return instead of Maximum return".

Again, i need to means , fine words we will all embrace because they altruistically revolve round the Golden Rule of fairness. generally , however, they're not always practiced. Sadly, we live more today, an aberration of author *Ayn Rand's existential position - there's no room for altruism in business.

Understand a CEO's ethical dilemma when challenged with a take-it-or-leave-it Maximum return challenge. within the end, an executive's lifespan is based on one thing: 'carrying out' or being 'carried out'.

be construed as an endorsement for the illegalities engaged in by Enron / WorldCom or others still to be discovered. the purpose is, what they're accused of didn't just happen overnight. Given the proper set of circumstances, the proper amount of your time , the proper global competitive business climate, the proper protection under the law, these large companies evolved - learned to become what they're today.

Does that make them any less culpable? No! But it should serve more as a lighthouse warning that, a) This problem is more far-reaching - insidious - than we'd once imagined, and, b) It Must be corrected - Quickly!

On a positive note, there are and are many reputable studies done on the positive impact of ethics within the workplace for instance **Harvard graduate school Professors John Kotter and James Heskett who studied the performance of 207 large firms over an 11-year period. In their findings they wrote:

Corporate culture can have a big impact on a firm's long-term economic performance. They found the firms with cultures that emphasized all the key managerial constituencies (customers, stockholders, and employees) and leadership from managers from all levels outperformed, by an outsized margin, firms that didn't . Over an 11-year period, the previous increased revenues by a mean of 682% versus 166% for the latter, expanded their work forces by 282% versus 36%, grew their stock prices by 901% versus 74% and improved their net incomes by 756% versus 1%.

The net-net of this demonstrates companies that paid attention equally to customers; stockholders and employees outperformed people who didn't and over an 11-year period garnered a net growth income factor of 756%. Ethics Pays!

tive studies within the world will do little to prevent the dismantling of morals and ethics as long as those that engage in unethical behavior are allowed to continue. it is time Governments and law-enforcement agencies bring more pressure in touch on those that sit back comfortably at a distance [Corporate Boards] creating policies that stretch the boundaries of law and fan the flames of ethical undoing.

Stronger laws and penalties with teeth - financial and criminal - are needed to bring needed consequences to already financially comfortable Board Directors who, i feel we'll determine quite quickly, are going to be more willing to re-embrace the "Do Unto Others" principle that keep business strong and elevates the collective!

Italian speaking psychologist in Denmark Book a session with enrico cappelletto Italian psychologist in Denmark psychologist in Denmark enrico cappelletto

#Italian psychologist in Denmark

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riverflowsthroughit · 7 years

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Social Worker Extraordinaire, New York City

Verena was my partner in a late night on-call volunteering work for over five years. It was called Domestic and Other Violence Emergencies (DOVE) Program at New York Presbyterian Hospital where we would expect a call between the hours of 6PM and 7AM and get ourselves to the ER without a real clue of what we may expect to see. We would essentially relieve the social workers during the night by being first responders to a trauma patient, specifically after a sexual assault or domestic violence incident. I know the program transformed me immensely and one of the things I was able to take away was meeting and staying in touch with so many incredibly talented and compassionate individuals. These women had full time jobs but spent time during nights and weekends facing some of the harshest realities of our society, and helping others start on a long road to healing. Verena took that experience and with her incredible gift of listening and empathizing was able to shine even brighter. And all the roads we have to walk are winding, as they say. So proud to call her my friend and learn a couple of new (and surprising) things about her from the Q/A below. 1. Name Verena Salvi 2. Where is your hometown? Rome, Italy. 3. What is your profession/career/title/self-label/designation? I’m an advocate, a social worker and a trauma-focused psychotherapist in the crime victim unit of a large hospital. I’m also an adjunct professor in the graduate department of Columbia University School of Social Work, a faculty member of the post-graduate Trauma Training Program at the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy, and a freelance trainer and consultant with various organizations working on gender-based violence and human rights. 4. What was the journey like to get where you are (career wise)? When was the mental shift to start the journey? It was a journey alright, in both the figurative and the literal sense of the word. Growing up in a household with domestic violence, I began traveling my way out of reality years before I could physically travel away. Since an early age, I developed the ability to dissociate from my own experiences and attune to the experiences of the people around me, listening and giving my time to others as an instrument for confessions of both anguish and happiness. I didn’t know it back then, but listening to other people and accompanying them through arduous journeys would soon become my passion and my life. But it would take many more miles of physical travel, new beginnings and second chances, from Rome to London to Dublin and back to Rome, before I could find my way to New York City and learn to re-attune to my own emotions. Rome lives on a past so glorious to challenge the passing of time and New York transcends time because its strength lies in the hopes of its inhabitants, vibrating to the beats of the most colorful humanity. After nearly 15 years, this is home. 5. Biggest accomplishment since making the (physical/mental) move? I’m proud of the work I do and immensely grateful for the privilege to provide long-term quality trauma-informed treatment to survivors independently of their ability to pay. Compassionate and competent care should not be off limits to people who cannot afford the big bucks and should not have an arbitrarily-set expiration date. How do you begin a journey of recovery by telling someone that they only have a set amount of sessions to get better? The most harrowing consequence of trauma is the shattering of human connections. You see, trauma is what happens but also what doesn’t happen; it’s the lack of support and understanding after a difficult experience or even worse the presence of blame. My work has taught me that when survivors experience being seen and heard by a safe and compassionate person, and without boundary violations, they start to create a new template for what human relationships can be; they begin to see themselves not as damaged but as people who have been hurt but are not broken and are capable of moving forward in life. For trauma survivors, safe and reliable connection is an oxygen line straight to the heart. We now know a tremendous amount about trauma and about how to mitigate and transform the effects of trauma, but we are not doing a good-enough job at making sure that all survivors have access to specialized modalities to help them move beyond survival and reclaim what was stolen from them - the ability to live in the present moment. As I realized that the most traumatized survivors are also the most underserved, I set out to train in modalities that are experiential and aim at providing a reparative experience. I trained in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Internal Family Systems (IFS), Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and brought all these modalities and knowledge to my work, where survivors don’t have to worry about how they are going to pay for therapy or about having to recover from years of abuse in just a few weeks. 6. What was biggest disappointment and plan to overcome it? I feel defeated by the lack of available resources to overcome injustice. I can tell a survivor that she is not to blame and not deserving of violence but I can’t make an affordable apartment materialize for her so she and her children can be safe; I can’t make more beds appear in domestic violence shelters and I can’t make a conviction happen for a rapist who doesn’t even see the inside of a court room, let alone the inside of a cell. I can’t make competent trauma-informed psychiatrists lower their fees or take common insurances, and I can’t stop Family Court judges from awarding visitation rights to perpetrators of violence solely based on their rights as parents. If you terrorize your family, physically and/or psychologically, your rights as parent should not override the rights of the people you inflicted harm upon. I don’t know how to overcome barriers deeply entrenched in patriarchy, lack of privilege, systematic racism, and gender-based oppression, but I think that it will take the big village and the strength of movements like Black Lives Matter, feminists and LGBTQ rights activists, and the many other voices of the historically unheard people in partnership with organizations like The American Civil Liberties Union, committed to use their power for the advancement of justice. I’m waiting for the revolution Tracey Chapman sang about… remember? It’s sounds like a whisper! 7. Advice for other women? Make a lot of noise and reject any and all of the oppressive messages that have been battered into the hearts and minds of girls and women since forever; chief among them the message that women share any responsibility in their victimizations. No more; not ever. Women should not have to live their lives from a harm-reduction perspective. Why should anyone have to make decisions based on what would make them more or less likely to be raped? The responsibility to commit interpersonal violence resides solely on the person who chooses to victimize another one. We need to stop policing women’s lives and hold perpetrators of violence accountable. 8. Where in the world do you feel “tallest”? Laying down and looking up at the sky. There’s so much space for all of us. 9. What extra-curricular activities/hobbies are you most proud of? Why? Outside of my work, my biggest passion is the rock singer Noel Gallagher. His music has been the soundtrack of my life and has accompanied me through all major life transitions, across countries, continents and redemption. I followed Noel Gallagher around the world, and when I’m on the road I feel 16 years old. 10. What is the future goal/challenge (career and/or life goals in 5-10 years)? Right now my biggest goal is to get more comfortable seating for the survivors I see for therapy. Welcome to the world of non-profit; we do amazing work but we don’t have enough resources. I dream of being able to transform my office into a haven of physical comfort, because my survivors are worth it. But I need better furniture. One day. 11. What fears are you still hoping to overcome? I’m still afraid that I won’t be able to help the next survivor who enters my therapy room. A few days ago, a girl sat in front of me with visible cuts all over her arms, several suicide attempts in her past, and a combination of hope and resignation in her eyes. Little did she know that as her voice trembled and she attempted to negotiate between hope and despair, I was engaged in the same struggle inside of me. I heard a familiar voice whispering, “You won’t be able to help her.” Instead of trying to silence it, I welcomed it and recognized it for what it was; a very young part of me who learned that it’s better not to take chances. And so I whispered back, “It’s okay little one; thank you for trying to protect me from disappointment, but I got this. I can help her.” If this young woman could find the courage to trust again, I could find the courage to walk alongside her. I told her, “I don’t know how and I don’t know how long it will take, but I’m going to see you through this.” She smiled and I smiled. 12. Anything you'd do differently (if you had another go at life)? Yes, quite a few. I would be kinder to myself from a much younger age. I’ve only really began to treat myself with the same loving kindness I treat other people in recent years, and even now I can slip back into old habits of self-devaluing too easily. As a woman, I tolerated too much and have apologized too many times for things that required no apology or, even worse, for events in which I should have been on the receiving end of an apology. But where I have no regrets is laughter… I have had some great laughs in this life, by myself and with other people. 13. What inspires you? People who live with disabilities and continue to be examples of dignity and strength in a world where those in power shamelessly mock them and suffer no consequences; immigrants and refugees who travel through hell for a new life and to contribute honestly to the wealth of this country only to live with the daily fear of being separated from their loved ones; survivors of sexual violence who have the courage to speak up even when they are given the message that it’s okay for someone to “grab” them and exploit them to satisfy a sense of entitlement. Time and time again, it is when I’m faced with the worst of humanity that I find the best of humanity as well. 14. What are you hopeful about? A new wave of activism with a no-tolerance attitude for injustice and violation of human rights; this new wave is rightly defiant of the old and defective argument that there should be space for all opinions if the opinions presented are, in fact, about hatred and violating human rights. We can disagree on whether or not access to weapons keep people safer or contribute to widespread violence. I happen to agree with the latter argument but we can talk about it. If you think LGBTQ people should not have the same rights and civil liberties as everyone else or if you believe that it is okay to torture prisoners of war, we are no longer having a difference of opinion; you are advocating to deny someone their humanity and basic rights and my tolerance for your “opinion” does not extend to violation of human rights. 15. What are you reading now? (what books do you gift most and what are your favorite reads?) The Daily Show, an Oral History (I miss Jon Stewart). I have given away more copies of Trauma and Recovery that I can remember. The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, by child psychiatrist Bruce Perry, changed me as a psychotherapist for the better and forever. Borderliners, by Peter Hoeg, was the book that made me feel not alone as a girl. The Body Keeps the Score, by Bessel van der Kolk, should be a mandatory read for anyone working with trauma. Why Does He Do That, by Lundy Bancroft, is the gift of freedom for any woman who has experienced domestic violence. Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town, by Jon Krakauer, should be read by anyone who works in a college in just about any capacity. Willow Weep for Me is a beautifully-written personal narrative of trauma and depression and one of the few works of non-fiction portraying the recovery journey of a woman of color. 16. Who is a “WOW Woman” in your life who inspires you (and why)? My EMDR supervisor, Leah Leatherbee. Leah is the most gifted therapist I know, a dedicated teacher and, above all, a woman who radiates good energy and warmth. She is that person who leaves a room better than she found it and never seems to run out of encouragement for others and sunshine to share. You can learn more about her here: parnellemdr.com/members/lleatherbee/ 17. Where can others find you/your work (links to websites, blogs, etc.)? DOVE website An article about our work Trauma Training Program link Linkedin My (non-trauma related, for once) Instagram

#WOW Women #Amazing Women #Brave #Women #March '17 #Portraits #Original Photography #Tumblr Photography #Stories #Women Stories #Interesting Stories #Heartfelt Stories #Amazing Verena #WOW Woman #wowwoman

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gibsongirlselections · 4 years

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Considering My Nazi Reparations

My great grandfather was a slave. He died on May 7, 1943 alongside most of his loved ones in the Sobibor concentration camp, about 120 miles from Warsaw. I’ve been thinking a lot about reparations.

One son and his family escaped years earlier to America. Ernst and Julinka arrived with no special skills, and proved to be imperfect people, with their marriage falling apart not long after arrival in New York. About the best we can say is they brought their five-year-old son with them. My father. He naturalized as a teen, making me the first native born American in the family and later, the first to get an advanced degree. Immigrants, we get the job done, right?

Through a happenstance discussion with a former German diplomat, I learned of a technical change in German law dealing with the loss of citizenship under Nazi persecution that may mean I am a German citizen by birth, transmitted through my father. The adjudication process is complex and success not assured, but as the diplomat said, “We cannot undo the past. We cannot raise the dead. But we can offer you this, citizenship, something we hold dear.” A reparation.

Nazi reparations, with well over $60 billion paid out, are the gold standard, and fall into three broad categories.

The first leg of reparation was early financial support to the Israel, now ended. By 1956 Germany was supplying over 87 percent of Israel’s state revenue.

The second leg is direct payments to survivors. There are multiple programs, established through the ongoing NGO-like Claims Conference, for payments to elderly survivors, those needing medical care, payments to children taken from their parents, payments to victims of medical experiments, claims for looted art, and more. The payments vary, but are modest, thousands of dollars, symbolic not life-changing. As one head of the Claims Conference said, “It has never been about the money. It was always about recognition.”

These payments are directed at those who directly suffered. Though payments continue for the life of the victim, they are not given to later generations (though in some cases surviving spouses continue to be paid). I have no claim to Holocaust money. Reparations went to the living individuals harmed, not to the generations removed. My extended family got nothing; they were all dead.

The final leg of German reparations is what might be called atonement. For me, the possibility of being extended German citizenship makes for a small part of all that. Germany’s postwar Constitution outlawed hate symbols, specifically the swastika. In 1952 Germany officially apologized for Nazi crimes. The explicit story of WWII is taught in schools, and memorials and museums expose the horrors of the Third Reich. Modern Germans know their history.

Another important element of Nazi reparations is much of the money comes from direct perpetrators of the crimes. French and Swiss banks had held funds deposited by murdered Jews. After the war the banks tried to keep the money, but were instead forced to pay it into reparation accounts. Life insurance companies which refused to pay beneficiaries on the specious ground that premiums were not kept current while policyholders were in concentration camps were made to contribute.

Hundreds of German and Austrian companies that employed slave laborers paid up. It was an uneven process; in 1999, class action lawsuits against slave users Deutsche Bank, Siemens, BMW, Volkswagen, and Opel failed, though the German government and industrial groups agreed separately to compensate former slaves. The amounts were small, in the thousands of dollars.

And so we come to America, where BLM and others are demanding reparations for slavery. Unlike the Nazi system, as well as the reparations the U.S. paid to Japanese-American internees (payments went to survivors and a very limited number of descendants) and to victims of horrid syphilis experiments at Tuskegee University (payments went to survivors, spouses, and children), financial reparations are envisioned on a broad scale, as wide as paying something to most of the 37 million African Americans now living in America. The majority who believe they are descendants of slaves do so based on family lore; how many can documentarily connect back 400 years to a slave without a last name?

The scale of slavery reparations and the amount of time passed since enslavement also means unlike Germany, 100 percent of America’s reparations would be paid out of general Federal taxes collected from, among others, descendants of slaves themselves. Does anything say “white supremacy” clearer than forcing modern African Americans to pay for their own reparations? For the rest of us fully unconnected to slavery, the money taken has about as much meaning as a spoonful of hot spit. Divided among so many, it is like figuring how many inches of interstate highway your taxes paid for. Modern reparations are as separated from the reality of ownership and of being owned as four centuries will allow. If reparations are symbolic, these would be near meaningless.

There isn’t space here to discuss the reparations inherent in the Civil Rights Acts and the Great Society, trillions spent, as well as existing racial preferences in federal contracting, affirmative action, job quotas, and educational admissions. Never mind the massive practical problems of raising additional reparations money and creating a distribution system for payments. Nor is there room to enlarge the story as it needs to be and ask what amends are owed by Arab, African, and European slavers, never mind the European textile manufacturers who profited mightily from cheap cotton. Few are ready to talk about the Portuguese slave trade which sent forced laborers into the cane fields of the Caribbean and South America to profit in part American sugar refiners and rum makers. Less than five percent of African slaves went to the U.S. Slavery was a massive interconnected global system.

In reality reparations for slavery will need to be of the atonal kind we see in Germany. Much of this is already hard on the ground. We have the National Museum of African American History and Culture on the National Mall. America’s commitment to free speech makes it unlikely hate symbols, such as the Confederate flag, will ever be banned outright (the Supreme Court consistently refuses to create a “hate speech” carve out in the 1A) but clearly a cultural corner has been turned which will see those symbols have less and less place in mainstream society.

An apology is overdue; just words of course, but words are sometimes all we have. President Reagan apologized to Japanese-American internees in 1988. Bill Clinton in 1997 apologized to the people affected by government medical experiments conducted at Tuskegee University in the 1930s. Though nine states, including Alabama, North Carolina, and Virginia, have formally apologized for slavery, during the Obama administration the House and Senate passed bipartisan resolutions of apology but failed to reconcile the two versions. Obama, a coward when courage called, chose not to apologize without that political support.

So the question is: does BLM want to move forward or remain in the past? Financial reparations at this point accomplish nothing. They do not compensate the victims, they do not punish the slavers, they would be in any amount too little too late, an almost shallow act. The form reparations must take, atonement, is partially underway and will someday include a formal apology. The problem is that such actions are meant to provide closure, an endpoint to allow a new starting point. One never forgets the past, the dead are always with us and we build memorials and tell their stories to ensure that, but we accept some sort of ending to empower the living to shoulder the responsibility of going on.

Will BLM do that, or is there still political fodder in ensuring slavery remains a scab to be picked as necessary, crisscrossing the same lines like a figure skater, to be blamed for everything from COVID deaths to low SAT scores, to forever remain a collar? Are people ready to stop being victims, responsibility of their fate outside their control? Reparations carries with it an agreement to heal; the line is never forget, not never forgive.

It will be a long time before I hear whether I qualify for German citizenship. Nothing will replace an extended family I will never know, nothing will displace the dark spaces inside my complex father, but I am anxious to see what does change if I become a German citizen. So I’ve been thinking a lot about reparations.

Peter Van Buren, a 24-year State Department veteran, is the author of We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, Hooper’s War: A Novel of WWII Japan, and Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the 99 Percent.

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Bill Ellis, Whispers in an Ice Cream Parlor: Culinary Tourism, Contemporary Legends, and the Urban Interzone, 122 J Amer Folklore 53 (2009)

Abstract

A contemporary legend active in 1910 held that white women were at risk of being abducted into involuntary slavery if they visited an ice cream parlor. This article grounds this legend in the emergence of ice cream into everyday American foodways, a trend paralleled by the growing economic impact of Mediterranean immigrants and by the increasing practice of “warehousing” potentially marriageable women of Western and Northern European descent in big-city colleges and technical schools. The ethnic-owned ice cream “parlor” thus became a liminal interzone in which single women engaged in culinary tourism in a way that was seen as dangerous to their ethnic identity.

“Ice cream parlors,” solemnly stated Miss Florence Mabel Dedrick in 1910, “are the places where scores of girls have taken their first step downward.” Dedrick’s remarks appeared in an enormously popular book titled Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls, or, War on the White Slave Trade, a collection of various crusaders’ accounts of combating the alleged criminal conspiracy that trapped scores of unwary white girls into entering a life of prostitution. Her contribution gave her impressions as a rescue missionary working among the denizens of Chicago’s red-light district. Innocent country girls, drawn to the big city by its attractions and promise of good jobs, came in contact with the agents of Satan, who lurked inside movie theaters, amusement parks, fruit stores, and, most especially, ice cream parlors. And the danger was spreading, Dedrick said: ice cream was the bait attracting young girls “even in the large country town,” where white slavers, the malign agents of a national and international market in prostitutes, had recruiting stations (Dedrick 1910:111).

Another contributor to Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls, Chicago’s federal district attorney, Edwin W. Sims, claimed to have personally examined some 250 victims of white slavery and had documented the peril with multiple confessions from its perpetrators. “One thing should be made very clear to the girl who comes up to the city,” Sims warned, “and that is that the ordinary ice cream parlor is very likely to be a spider’s web for her entanglement.” When such places are owned by foreigners, the danger is greater, and he alluded to “scores of cases ... where young girls have taken their first step towards ‘white slavery’” in such establishments. “And it is hardly too much to say,” he added, “that a week does not pass in Chicago without the publication in some daily paper of the details of a police court in which the ice cream parlor of this type is the scene of a regrettable tragedy.” The only safe course, he concluded: stay away from any such establishment, whether in Chicago or in any town in which one has opened (Sims 1910:71).

Comments such as these are often posted for their comic effect on Web sites devoted to the history of what has become one of the most common and uncontroversial of American desserts. But in the context of the white slave panic of a hundred years ago, these rumors were not at all humorous. The nativistic and xenophobic emotions that fueled this panic have been studied recently by a number of scholars (e.g., J. Adams 2005; Donovan 2006; Langum 2007; Morone 2003). As these more generally historical treatments explain, the crusade was led by a coalition of nativistic religious organizations that linked the growing rate of immigration to criminal undergrounds in urban areas. These efforts were coordinated into political action by Sims, whom I have quoted above, and by his close friend James R. Mann, a U.S. representative from Cook County. In fact, no evidence ever was presented that prostitution relied on inexperienced women who were kidnapped and forced into the profession; nevertheless, the panic was influential in the passage of the 1910 Mann Act, which made it illegal to transport women intended for prostitution from one state to another. While no ethnic crime ring was ever successfully prosecuted under this act, it led the way to a series of emergency measures imposing strict restrictions on immigration, believed to be an additional feeder of “white slaves” into the country. “White slavery” was an important factor in the marginalization of ethnic minorities during the early twentieth century, and the Mann Act is now notorious for its use to harass upwardly mobile African Americans like Jack Johnson and Chuck Berry.

However, this article will move in a different direction, asking why the legend named an ice cream parlor as the site of these women’s downfall, rather than a place devoted to some other popular food. It will explore how this contemporary legend implicitly commented on the increasing visibility and influence of immigrants, particularly Italian Americans and Middle Easterners, during the first decade of ice cream’s popularity in American foodways. We will see how the smack of foreignness made the seemingly innocuous dish of ice cream a forbidden fruit of ethnic tourism and how the female consumer independent enough to indulge in it became, potentially, a “fallen woman.” Ice cream quickly became an all-American food during the next decades, like the German-derived apple pie and the aptly named french fry, whose entry into American foodways, as Karen Hess (2001) has documented, came through meals prepared by Etienne LeMaire, the Paris-born White House maître d’hôtel during Thomas Jefferson’s administration (1801–1809). Hence the white slavery rumor became increasingly irrelevant. Nevertheless, this article will explore the way that this relatively novel treat for a time became a potent symbol of how the American landscape was rapidly changing in the face of emerging Mediterranean neighborhoods. In a parallel way, it will note how the banana, another novelty of the era associated with immigrants, likewise attracted the same dangerously exotic aura, a reputation it continues to hold in current Internet legends.

Contemporary Legend and Culinary Tourism

The study of food, as Charles Camp argued in his influential survey American Foodways 1989, needs to take into consideration more than the foodstuffs that form the basis of dishes, the customs of preparing them, and the statistical analysis of when, where, and by whom they are consumed. Foodways consist of complex symbol systems by which people continually affirm or redefine their cultural identities. “Food is one of the most, if not the single most, visible badges of identity,” he emphasizes, “pushed to the fore by people who believe their culture to be on the wane, their daughters drifting from their heritage, their sons gone uptown” (29). Thus we can readily see how the act of consuming food can in itself be a communicative act, one that could (as Camp suggests) express a conservative impulse to maintain “home values” through adherence to “down home” menu options.

Conversely, as Lucy M. Long (2003) has more recently suggested, foodways could embody subversive impulses, challenging traditional values by introducing new options. In this mode, which she has termed “culinary tourism,” people use food to try on new identities and explore alternative ways of life. She says that foodways embody an ethos, or a spiritual attitude toward human beings’ proper relationship to nature. Consuming “organic” foods, Long suggests, allows consumers a way of “trying out” such an alternative spiritual worldview (2003:30–1). Extending her point a little, though, we can see that such acts of tourism could imply not just curiosity but a desire to rebel against powerful cultural forces. Organic or vegetarian foodways may simply have a nostalgic element, looking back to a time when the relationship between humans and nature was simpler and more direct. But much of the cultural discussion around “organic gardening” in recent times has focused on a deeply felt desire for an alternative to the economic forces that have controlled many Americans’ dietary choices. Choosing organic, we might say, is choosing something other than the mainstream, and making that decision is, on a cultural level, more significant than the actual benefits of such produce.

In addition, Long has argued, foodways can be “about individuals satisfying curiosity” by means of experiencing new dishes “in a mode that is out of the ordinary, that steps outside the normal routine to notice difference and the power of food to represent and negotiate that difference” (2003:20). Such an experience, she stresses, involves a conscious choice to step outside one’s traditional cultural landscape and explore an unknown sensory terrain. In some cases, she notes, the experience is pleasant, and the food then becomes an aesthetically pleasing part of one’s own culture. In other cases, satisfying one’s curiosity is itself enjoyable, even if one does not enjoy the tastes, because in so doing one has temporarily declared independence from the typical culinary choices of one’s home culture.

And in still others, one unwittingly transgresses profound cultural taboo lines. Long describes how she and some Western companions traveling in Burma happened on a lunchroom and ordered a dish, recognizing its “general category” but not its specific identity. She and the others “ate enthusiastically” until the cook stopped by their table. Finally understanding their requests to know what meat was included, he simply said, “Arf, arf.” The dish, it happened, was dog fried rice. At once, Long recalls, the party stopped eating, and those who did take an additional bite did so not to appreciate the taste aesthetically but purely out of curiosity “and with a definite sense of eating something outside our usual boundaries of what was edible” (2003:22).

This is, of course, a first-person account of a real experience, but it is also a contemporary legend. This genre of folk narrative has been the focus of intensive research since it came to folklorists’ attention in the 1960s (see Bennett and Smith 1993; P. Smith 1997). Initially termed “urban” legends (or “big city legends” or “urban belief tales”) by Richard Dorson, reflecting its original discussion in the “Is there a folk in the city?” controversy (Brunvand 2000: 14–5), he also called them “modern” legends because of the original belief that they represented a novel kind of narrative, brought into being by emergent forms of technology and the media. However, a careful search of historical records from classical Greek and Roman times on soon uncovered signs of narratives that were cognate to “modern” legends not only in content but in form and function as well. The term “contemporary” legend therefore became a preferred one, as it matches the sense, reflected in historical day, that the events related were reported to have “just occurred,” whatever the time period of the narrators and their audiences (see Ellis 2001b).

In the case of Long’s experience, foodways has crossed from the realm of tourism and into an area studied by folklorists as contemporary legend. But her narrative, one might retort, is not an “urban legend” attributed to a “friend of a friend” but a real-life experience truthfully told by someone who was present. Legend scholars, however, have recognized that the genre is not a specific type of narrative and that its alleged truthfulness is not and should not be a factor in defining a performance as a “legend.” Rather, as Linda Dégh (2001:58–79) and I (Ellis 2001a:142–59) have argued, legend is a process rather than a product, a form of cultural debate in which participants explore the boundaries of experience. While some widely spread and controversial narratives have proved to be untrue when investigated by skeptical scholars, as Paul Smith (1984) noted in his discussion of food-contamination rumors and legends in context, most of the stories told as part of the legend-telling process are in fact true or at least not obviously untrue. Gary Alan Fine (1989), too, was able to document large numbers of cases in which consumers had found rodents or other creatures inside bottles of commercial beverages; hence the widespread legend “The Mouse in the Coke Bottle” was based on a substantial body of legally documentable instances. The event recounted above is also part of a large corpus of narratives describing instances when a dog, considered a taboo dish by Europeans and North Americans, was unintentionally consumed. While some of these stories are unverifiable and presumably fictitious, and others are real events accurately related, all are contemporary legends.

More significantly, contemporary legends traditionally explore cultural elements that William Clements (1989) has described as “interstitial” in nature. These topics include aspects of everyday life that were seen at the time as uncanny, dangerous, or difficult to “name,” and so they are especially valuable information with which to begin a cultural history of that time. Historian Luise White found African contemporary legends essential to her discussion of the colonial experience; as they “make more connections than other kinds of evidence do ... [they] insert themselves into domains of power and regions of the body.” Other, more historically respectable forms of evidence, she adds, “do not reveal the same breadth and depth of daily life and thought” (2000:312).

Thus contemporary legend and culinary tourism represent similar folk impulses, in that they intentionally explore the debatable interstices of our world, the gaps between known and unknown, self and other, safety and danger, and, especially, food and filth. It is no surprise that acts of culinary tourism have often been the topic for contemporary legends, often describing exotic foods in an interstitial way: apparently edible, but in fact causing those who consume them to transgress a deeply held taboo. An especially dramatic example concerns the relatives of a person who emigrated to a foreign country. Around Christmas, a typical version goes, they receive a package containing an unfamiliar powder, which they take to be some exotic spice that their relative has sent them as a present from her new foreign home. After trying it in a variety of dishes, they later receive a letter saying that the relative has died and asked that his body be cremated and the ashes sent home for burial. In fact, the relatives’ act of culinary tourism has inadvertently turned them into cannibals, the very embodiment of the exotic other (Brunvand 1993:75–9).

Chinese restaurants in particular have been the focus of culinary tourism horror legends. In one especially well-known example, with some remarkable links to Long’s real-life experience, a couple visiting an Asian country brings their pet dog along. On a walk, they chance on an interesting restaurant, take a table, and ask the owners also to give their pet something to eat. Not fully understanding the directions (like Long’s, they are often given in sign language), the proprietors take the animal to the kitchen and serve it up as a meal for the horrified tourists (Brunvand 1984:95–6). Even Chinese restaurants in Western countries are often rumored to include nonkosher ingredients, including meat taken from stray domestic pets or rats (Brunvand 1984:120–7). In one narrative common in Great Britain during the 1980s, a patron chokes on a meal served in such a restaurant. Rushed to a hospital, the victim has a rat bone extracted from her throat. Later, a search of the restaurant’s kitchen reveals more slaughtered and dressed rats, along with cans of cat food and “half an Alsatian dog,” ready to be made into the next set of meals (Smith 1983:54).

In a parallel way, genuine incidents in which food poisoning was linked to ethnic-oriented chains like Olive Garden and Taco Bell have regularly made national news, while similar incidents associated with pan-American fast-food or family-style restaurants have received only regional attention. Such a trend was made especially visible in February 2007, when a New York City telejournalism team filmed rats running through a Taco Bell/KFC restaurant after its closing. Taco Bell, an ethnically marked chain, has been the target of repeated charges of serving unclean food, and KFC likewise began as a regional chain featuring its “Kentucky” fried chicken, made from a secret recipe passed down in “Colonel” Sanders’s Southern family. (A common rumor held that he had in fact stolen it from an African American cook in his neighborhood.) With fried chicken remaining a treat more widely accepted and consumed by black and Southern white diners—who, like Latinos, are stereotyped as poor, ignorant, and “dirty”—it was inevitable that a report of finding rodents in such a chain store would make national and international news. Humorists like The Tonight Show’s Jay Leno used the scandal as an opportunity to make joking references to familiar urban legends.1 As typically discussed by legend scholars, though, these widespread legend complexes focus on “dirt” consumed as “food”: taboo violation mistaken for nourishment. Therefore, they treat contact with an ethnic foodway as physically contaminating but not as morally degrading, and they provide only a distant ground, not an immediate explanation, for the legend linking a visit to an ice cream parlor to the first step toward prostitution.

In discussing contamination legends dealing with fried chicken in African Ameri-can culture, Patricia A. Turner, writing in a book she coauthored with Gary Alan Fine, perceptively adds an idea that can lead to a second, more complex explanation. “Ethnic foods,” she argues, “are prepared and consumed by the very people who have created the dishes or by descendants who have had the recipes handed down to them. On special occasions or in special settings, these foods are shared with outsiders eager to participate in ‘equal opportunity eating’” (Fine and Turner 2001:143). When corporations like KFC and other white-owned chains appropriate foods that have been strongly associated with ethnic contexts, she reasons, they attack the community in a vulnerable spot. In its proper setting, the preparation and ingestion of home-cooked ethnic food is both nourishing and culturally affirming. Turner, for example, later recalled the “halo” that surrounded the memory of her Aunt Doll, who had for years helped out at community functions by making fried chicken according to her secret family recipe (92).

Hence, the rumors that spring up about contaminated fried chicken portray corporate-made fast food as dangerous not only to the body of the consumer but also to the “sacred territory” of privately prepared food. The issue is not simply a matter of whether KFC chicken in fact contains cooked rat meat, or, in the black parallel, whether Church’s fried chicken in fact contains drugs intended to sterilize male consumers. Rather, the issue is that an important element of Southern food-ways has been removed from its original context—the family-controlled kitchen. Thus, while the literal content of the legend asserts that the food itself contains some foreign substance that contaminates the consumer (rat meat, drugs produced by the Ku Klux Klan), in fact the point of the legend, as Fine and Turner construct it, is that the food itself is being consumed outside of its proper context (i.e., the home or church supper) and that the inappropriateness of this act puts the consumer at risk. The legends imply that whenever individuals (white or black) allow regional foodways to be prepared by anonymous representatives of a national corporation and eat them outside the safety of the homeplace, the risk of consuming dangerous substances is in fact a direct function of violating cultural foodways norms. It is not simply that there is something in the food that is out of place; the consumers themselves are out of their proper place.

The 1910 ice cream parlor legend is exactly parallel, in that it argues not that the ice cream itself taints those who consume it but that the unsupervised visit to the urban parlor in which it is served is itself a violation of social norms, a move toward a more liberal display of sexual identity. The fried chicken legends deal with a culture’s passive willingness to surrender a “sacred” duty to an anonymous corporation, while the ice cream legend hinges on a young woman’s active willingness to mingle with ethnic strangers. Both, however, show foodways choices as reflecting community values. Whether the choice is passive or active, the legends are alike in showing that those who enter a culinary world controlled by outsiders risk turning their moral systems, not their digestive systems, from pure to impure.

The question remains: why especially ice cream and not one of the many other treats that were available in big cities at the time? Bawdy African American songs from the early twentieth century were often filled with sexually charged food references. “I need a little sugar in my bowl / I need a little hot dog on my roll,” sang Bessie Smith in one of these naughty pieces ([1931] n.d.). Tamales, shrimp, and all-day suckers sold by the ubiquitous “candy man” filled out the repertory of double entendres. All of these would make logical symbols for the indulgence that would turn a decent young woman into a “white slave” who would give her body to ethnic johns. But it is difficult to find references to ice cream as a sexually suggestive foodway, so from a century’s distance it is not easy to see why a taste for such a treat would be associated with such a risk in a contemporary legend. To explicate this link, we need to delve deeper into the history of ice cream in American cultural history.

The Emergence of Ice Cream as an “American” Dessert

Reconstructing the place of ice cream in the first decade of the twentieth century is made difficult by the enormous growth in the treat’s popularity during the decade that followed. By 1918, the dish was so thoroughly “Americanized” that a common media legend asserted that it had been invented by Martha Washington, who left a bowl of cream outside one cold night for a neighborhood kitty and found it frozen solid in the morning. Tasting it, the first lady found that she had accidentally made a “smooth, delicious custard” (Funderburg 1995:3). Such “Eureka” legends were common: a number of other typical desserts such as the ice cream soda or sundae were similarly said to have been the result of chance accidents that resulted in commercially successful treats. But the truth is more complicated. Ice cream had in fact been fabricated for centuries in Asia and Europe, and the diary of William Black records that the elegant finish of a sumptuous dinner served by the governor of Maryland at his Annapolis home in 1744 was “some fine Ice Cream which, with the Strawberries and Milk, eat most Deliciously” (quoted in Funderburg 1995:3).

However, Black mentions the treat as a rare curiosity, and in fact it remained such throughout the 1800s because of the difficulty of making it. Requiring cream and sugar, which were both luxury foodstuffs during this period, it had to be fabricated in a bowl held over crushed ice (yet another luxury). Unless the preparer kept a spatula moving around the bowl constantly, the cream in the product would separate, and the milk would harden into inedible chunks (which is one problem with the Martha Washington legend). The result would be a runny mess (Williams 2006:88). “Philadelphia-style” ice cream was even more labor-intensive: cream was first whipped, then frozen, then partially thawed and churned, then frozen again. In the 1840s, a variety of hand-cranked freezers were marketed to make the process easier. While some of them claimed to make ice cream in ten minutes or less, one period cookbook stated that a quart of ice cream took half an hour to freeze, adding judiciously, “and sometimes longer” (Williams 2006:89). Personal letters and memoirs documenting this period, surveyed by Anne Cooper Funderburg (1995:35–40), show that the process remained a drawn-out, onerous one, lasting the better part of a morning or afternoon. In a letter describing one Fourth of July event, Elizabeth Prentiss told her correspondent that a new-fangled churn, advertised to make ice cream in two minutes, in fact occupied the whole family “from half-past twelve to nearly two o’clock, when we decided to have dinner and leave the servants to finish it. It came to the table at last, very rich and rather good” (quoted in Funderburg 1995:37). For this reason, the dish remained the property of the upper classes, with servants available to finish the chore, or became the highlight of a once-a-summer family picnic, in which all participants took part in the wearisome task.

A variety of records show that this dessert was uncommon in the United States prior to 1900. Amelia Simmons’s 1796 American Cookery, the first truly native food-ways book, contains no recipe for ice cream. Even after more-efficient freezers became available, records of its being made outside of urban and upper-class settings continue to be uncommon. A record of a fancy dinner held by a hostess of the Washing-ton, D.C., “Smart Set” during the McKinley era still commented that the ice cream finish was “wonderful to behold.” The diarist, Ellen Maury Slayden, wife of a Texas congressman, recorded that it was so unfamiliar that one senator from a western state attempted to pop the scoop into his mouth, complete with the cloth doily on which it was served (Funderburg 1995:81). Other records from rural America bear out how strange the dish was at the time. When ice cream was first served in the territory that later became Wyoming, according to a witness’s reminiscence published in 1933, one backwoodsman at table commented, “Where in ____ does this stuff come from,” while another explained, “Shut up, you fool. It comes in cans” (quoted in Funderburg 1995:83).

Such upper-crust delicacies obviously influenced the development of the ice cream industry that emerged in the twentieth century (Funderburg 1995). But the perilous ice cream parlor of the white slave era was in fact the latest development of an ethnic Italian foodways tradition, that of the street vendors referred to generally as “hokey-pokey men.”2 The term “hokey-pokey,” which we know now as a child’s dance, in fact comes from a street cry collected both in the United States and Great Britain: “Here’s the stuff to make you jump; hokey-pokey, penny a lump.” (This quickly entered into children’s folklore as part of a jump-rope rhyme, which probably inspired its use in the familiar song.) The origin and meaning of “hokey pokey” are unclear, but Italian immigrants made up a large part of the country’s ice cream vendors, drawing their recipes from indigenous recipes for gelato. Early records suggest that it combined an Italian street cry “O, che pochi,” understood as “Look how cheap it is,” with the familiar magicians’ catchphrase “hocus pocus.” In any case, “hokey-pokey” became the common term of streetside ice cream, and vendors represented a wide range of immigrant groups as well as African Americans, who quickly joined the trade (Funderburg 1995:73–4). In 1892, an American cookbook, The Practical Confectioner and Cake Baker, glossed “hokey-pokey” as a type of ice cream “which you can buy on the New York streets from the sons of sunny Italy” (quoted in Funderburg 1995:73).

One of the difficulties that hokey-pokey men faced, however, was how to serve the treat. Some expected customers to produce their own dish; other vendors provided one, waited for the patron to eat up, then wiped the dish clean and put it away for the next buyer. Most often, Funderburg notes, the portion was dipped onto a small piece of brown paper, but by 1899 vendors in New York City were making ice cream sandwiches by pressing a scoop between two thin wafers (1995:106). This produced a treat that the customer could carry away and eat. Needless to say, the purity of hokey-pokey ice cream was usually suspect, and public health officials in Philadelphia and New York regularly warned consumers about the unsanitary practices of vendors and blamed contaminated batches for summertime epidemics of typhoid fever (Funderburg 1995:75–6). Nevertheless, the streetside trade was profitable enough that successful vendors began to take over storefront shops, turning them into “parlors” where patrons could sit and eat the treat out of bowls. Such parlors drew on the emerging popularity of “soda fountains,” machines that charged drinking water with carbon dioxide and served it flavored with a variety of syrups. As Paul Dickson and Funderburg show, these had proved a popular success when first demonstrated at the 1876 Centennial Fair in Philadelphia, and by the 1890s they had been installed in a variety of businesses in large cities, predominantly drug stores (Dickson 1972:88–99; Funderburg 1995:85–98). The so-called ice cream soda, which actually combined carbonated water with regular cream and shaved ice, was already popular enough by the mid-1890s that it was being called “our national beverage” (Dickson 1972:61–4; Funderburg 1995:100–3).

The controversy over the invention of the ice cream cone showed that the treat retained a strong element of ethnic identity. Contemporary records (usefully summarized by Funderburg 1995:117–22) agree that the innovation was popularized at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, though attempts to identify exactly who deserved credit for the invention ended in confusion. However, comparison of the legends leave little doubt that the idea was not new; rather, it was the logical solution to the hokey-pokey man’s dilemma of how to serve the treat neatly to customers who wanted to walk off with their portion. Early versions agree that the cone first appeared on the fair’s main midway, a street simply called “The Pike” that ran from the entrance for about a mile. The Missouri Historical Society’s extensive Web site, 1904 World’s Fair: Looking Back at Looking Forward 2005, provides a detailed account of this exposition, including a map and many contemporary photographs and souvenirs.3 Along this stretch, this Web site shows, visitors were enticed by a variety of exhibits, rides, and live shows, including one reenacting the creation of the world. This area featured a trip around the world, with buildings and live shows recreating foreign cultures from the Tyrolean Alps to Russia and Japan. One section, which charged an additional fee, took visitors to the “Streets of Cairo and Constantinople,” where tourists could watch hoochy-koochy dancers, visit the replica of a mosque, or take camel rides. As with most fairs, these sideshows were accompanied by strips of restaurants offering exotic foods, and it evidently was in one of these strips that the idea emerged of combining two ethnically tinged items into a single convenient treat.

During the patent litigation that followed the World’s Fair, six candidates for “inventing” the ice cream cone emerged, as Funderburg documents (1995:117 22): two were Syrian, one was Turkish, and one was Lebanese. All agreed that the idea emerged by happenstance when customers visited two adjacent booths: one sold a pastry item, variously described as a waffle, a waffle cookie,or a zalabia, a Levantine, cookielike treat. As Jack Marlowe, an observer of modern Middle Eastern cooking, explains, it was traditionally baked over an open fire in a hinged cast-iron platen, then sprinkled with sugar before eating (Marlowe 2003:4). The other booth sold hokey-pokey-style ice cream, which was served in a dish. Customers had to eat the dish seated at the booth, then return the dish to the proprietor. One witness claimed that the idea came from the Middle Eastern custom of rolling a pita bread to hold food such as sour cream (Funderburg 1995:118); in any case, customers learned to roll the waffle-like pastry into a cone while it was still warm. When it cooled, it proved to be substantial enough to hold a scoop of ice cream, and the customer could ask the proprietor to put this serving into the pastry and then consume both while continuing toward a nearby hoochy-koochy performance. The idea caught on rapidly, and after the fair closed, several of the concessionaires immediately purchased or adapted presses for making cones in commercial quantities.

The story is substantiated by World’s Fair records that show that at least fifty vendors had received permits to sell ice cream and nearly as many for selling “waffles” (Dickson 1972:69). But the difficulty with the story is that waffles, as they were usually made in the United States, did not harden quickly enough to hold ice cream. The universal references to waffle ovens or presses, however, make it clear that what was being fabricated was zalabia. Because such thin wafers came off the platens still soft enough to form, yet stiffened as they cooled, both Turkish and Italian immigrants had already used them as “horns” to fill with sweetened cream or else filled them with icing and rolled them into tubes, known as cannoli.

Whether or not the first actual cones were made in the Turkish section of the St. Louis World’s Fair, certainly, as Missouri Historical Society’s 1904 World’s Fair Web site demonstrates, the event introduced many forms of novel foodways to the Amer-ican public at large, and the principle was one that Italian immigrants understood and immediately exploited. In fact, the only person to receive a patent for an item resembling an ice cream cone was an Italian, Italo Marchiony, a Manhattan hokey-pokey vendor who actually had submitted a plan for molding dough into “ice cream cups” in 1903, the year before the fair (Funderburg 1995:121). While Marchiony’s idea arguably led to the molded flat-bottomed cones that are most familiar now, he was unable to claim royalties on the rolled pizzelle cones, and in fact both styles of cone remain in use alongside each other to this day.

So ice cream, however “American” it came to seem in the decade ahead, was still an ethnically charged food for most Americans in 1910. Mediterranean immigrants deserve the credit for taking the treat from its original context as an upper-class luxury out into city streets to become an indulgence for all classes. Like the soda fountains, which were experiencing a boom during this period, the new ice cream parlor was a storefront establishment owned and managed by immigrants. Such parlors, like the St. Louis World’s Fair’s “Streets of Cairo and Constantinople,” represented a liminal realm where members of differing races and ethnic backgrounds mingled and where mainstream white Americans, male and female, could indulge in culinary tourism. While this opportunity now seems innocuous, at the time such a choice brought together two cultural factors that crystallized briefly into the “spider’s web” of the dangerous ice cream parlor: the increasing move toward educating (and potentially empowering) young, unmarried white women and the increasing economic role played by immigrants, particularly Italians, in developing the American food industry.

“College Ice”: Small-Town Women in Big-City Parlors

To begin: if in this time period ordering ice cream was for the moment an act of culinary tourism, why did the legend emerge that young women were at risk, rather than all white consumers? This side of the legend developed from a series of moral crusades, originally anti-Semitic in nature, that arose in Europe during the late nineteenth century. Participants in these moral crusades, as historian Edward J. Bristow (1983) documents, included a wide range of reform and religious organizations, ranging from the Salvation Army to proponents of anti-obscenity statutes, such as the American reformer Anthony Comstock. A common allegation, Bristow notes, was that Jewish procurers were actively involved in recruiting young women, often drugging and kidnapping them and then shipping them to brothels all over the world. While Jewish charitable organizations such as B’nai B’rith quickly conceded that ghettoes were rife with prostitution, with both the procurers and the women being Jewish, repeated investigations showed that no coercion was involved and that the women participated willingly as a means of alleviating the financial hardships that affected most Jewish communities. In countries where Jewish immigrants had avenues to move from entry-level work to more respectable work, Bristow shows, women spent only a few years in the profession before quitting. Hence the problem was “self-correcting” (1983:320–2).

Nevertheless, beginning in the 1880s, the popular media in Europe reported a series of sensational cases alleging a well-organized international trade in prostitutes controlled by wealthy Jews. In 1892, a number of Jewish pimps were put on trial in Vienna for having conspired to ship prostitutes to foreign ports as far afield as Brazil and Turkey. Press coverage of the “Jewish white slave traffic” in Austria was intense and often implied that such rings were responsible for the mysterious disappearance of young non-Jewish girls. Franz Schneider, an openly anti-Semitic politician and rabble-rouser, gave a speech in the Austrian Parliament in which he alluded to “countless cases in which Christian servants employed by Jews disappear without trace, carried off to a dreadful fate in the brothels of Hungary, the Orient and South America, despite the vigilance of the legal authorities. These cases are connected with the incredible crimes committed by Jews because of their superstitions for the purpose of getting hold of Christian blood and calling to heaven for revenge” (quoted in Bristow 1983:82).

During the intense “white slavery” panic that occurred in both Great Britain and the United States from 1910 to 1913, Frederick Bullock, a special prosecutor appointed by Scotland Yard to investigate the matter, commented that “All sorts of stories, sensational and wholly improbable, were repeated from mouth to mouth of sudden disappearances, abductions, and attempts to entice and allure innocent girls” (quoted in Bristow 1983:44). The most widespread held that white slavers would anesthetize women in some public place by jabbing them with a “poisoned needle.” An official Massachusetts inquiry noted that one common story involved “the administration of a narcotic drug by the use of a hypodermic needle by a procurer, who plies the needle on his victim as he passes her on the street, or as he sits beside her in the street car or in the theatre.” When investigators tried to trace such claims to real events, the Massachusetts inquiry concluded, they inevitably found that they relied on the authority of a legendary “friend-of-a-friend” (Prostitution 1976:22). When similar claims surfaced in New York City in 1913–14, an unnamed physician was willing to say that the stories might be based on some truth, due to “the extreme scantiness of women’s apparel” (quoted in Bristow 1983:44).

The perpetrators were allegedly part of an ethnically controlled prostitution industry, and the women were being abducted to sell into brothels in some far-off or even foreign city. Constantinople (which we recall was the inspiration for the St. Louis World’s Fair site where ice cream cones were fabricated) was repeatedly mentioned as the ultimate destination for abducted European white slaves, who were then sold secretly at auction to Arab sheiks for their harems. The needle variant, as Jan Harold Brunvand observed, remained current late into the century, with young girls injected with drugs like heroin, cocaine, or LSD, often through a seat in a darkened movie theater (1984:79–80). Such needle legends then provided motifs that led to ostensive pranks in cities such as New York (see Ellis 1989) and soon became the dominant form of AIDS legends, with victims maliciously injecting tainted blood into random passersby or leaving contaminated needles in public places, often (as before) a theater seat (Bennett 2005:114–6). Again, though, such legends seem to have little to do with culinary tourism. While the choice of a treat might provide an ethnic procurer with the opportunity to use the poisoned needle (the phallic nature of which seems self-evident), why was the ice cream parlor a spider’s web that used the treat as a bait to entrap young women into a life of shame? This side of the legend needs to be unpacked separately.

A “parlor” was a place associated with the social life of young women of marriageable age. Max Sugar observes that, in turn-of-the-century courtship practices among “proper middle-class young ladies,” a young man of the right sort visited an eligible woman’s home and courted her in a room set aside for visitors (1993:128), rather than in a part of the house used for more intimate activities (such as sleeping). Such practices likewise gave parents and other family members ample opportunity to chaperone the courting couple. Opportunities to meet with potential partners outside the parlor were carefully limited. The 1890s were a period of intense political lobbying over the public sale of liquor, and so a barroom or saloon was already seen as an inappropriate place for such a girl to enter, even to purchase a nonalcoholic beverage. As Funderburg records, by the turn of the century, soda fountains were promoted by temperance organizations as wholesome places for young people, particularly young women, to patronize. “Temperance sired the soda fountain,” a turn-of-the-century source cited by Funderburg says, “and the ladies of the movement selflessly mothered it in the fond hope that it would someday vanquish the bar” (quoted in Funderburg 1995: 99). Soda fountains were seen as an acceptable place for unmarried women to frequent, and the industry promoted carbonated beverages as a safe alternative to draft beer. By 1892, a trade journal for drug store proprietors was observing that “No successful soda fountains sell ardent spirits in their soda” (quoted in Funderburg 1995:99).

However, such places developed a reputation for fostering casual, unchaperoned contacts between the sexes, particularly among young people. This in itself created sexual tensions, as did the tactical liberation of such girls from parental control through higher education. As Nancy E. Durbin and Lori Kent found by examining turn-of-the-century enrollment data (1989), women entered postsecondary institutions in dramatically higher numbers during the last decades of the 1800s, ostensibly to fill a growing demand for public schoolteachers, which was still seen as a female occupation. In fact, during the period from 1900 to 1930, males and females enrolled in college in about equal numbers (Goldin, Katz, and Kuziemko 2006:133).

The detailed analysis of the content of women’s education by Durbin and Kent illustrates details about gender and higher education in the period that the raw numbers do not show. The median age of marriage for white women during this time was nearly twenty-two years of age, which opened up a dangerous period between the age of sexual maturity (with its relatively protected environment of a local high school education) and the safe haven of marriage. For this reason, many parents considered college “a pleasant way to pass time before marrying,” and a large proportion of students who enrolled in higher education did so with no serious intentions of learning a specialized trade. “In this sense,” Durbin and Kent conclude, “postsecondary institutions ‘warehoused’ surplus female labor by providing young women with an alternative to idleness, marriage, or gainful employment” (1989:3). The ice cream parlor was associated with such a socially “warehoused” clientele early on, so much so that what we now call a sundae, or dish of ice cream with syrup or fruit added, was initially known as a “college ice.”4

So the ice cream parlor, in a cultural sense, was initially seen as a place similar to the literal parlor in a Victorian-style home, a “safe haven” for a young female to meet potential husbands during the dangerous period between puberty and marriage. Its appropriation by groups of young people outside the home meant that girls, while inside this commercial substitute for the domestic parlor, could engage in casual conversation and public courtship with members of the opposite sex. And now we have found a thread of the legend that does in fact speak to the dangers seen by white slavery crusaders. When a young girl comes to the city to enroll in a school, District Attorney Sims warned parents, she instinctively seems to make acquaintances. “She must have some one to talk to,” he observes; “it is the law of youth as well as the law of her sex to crave constant companionship.” As a result, “she is sentimentally in a condition to prepare her for the slaughter, to make her an easy prey to the wiles of the ‘white slave’ wolf” (1910:69). The best thing for a rural girl would be to stay in the country under her parents’ constant control, Sims advised (i.e., to stay in the parlor of her own home). If she were to come to the city to study, he added, she should stay “in the very best type of an educational institution where the girl students were always under the closest protection” (1910:71).

The “parlor,” in short, was an emic term for a kind of cultural warehouse, where unmarried women could meet potential husbands in a socially acceptable fashion. In the wider worldview that the legend expressed, women who left the protection of the family circle had to choose between the two kinds of commercially run “warehouses.” One, a risky but acceptable option, was the domain of higher education, with chaperones acting in loco parentis; the other was its grotesque parody, the house of prostitution, in which procurers literally warehoused females as sexual chattel. The ice cream “parlor” was an interstitial realm for young women. There she could be, for a time, outside the authority of parental figures, yet not engaging in behavior explicitly defined as sinful, such as drinking or dancing. As such, it was one of a variety of novel amusements common in big cities such as Chicago, which included movie theaters and other settings where mainstream whites and ethnic others could find themselves standing or sitting next to each other.

In these “interzones,” as Kevin Mumford (1997) christened them, Anglos could come into close contact with many ethnic cultures. In the midst of the current controversy over immigration, it is worth reminding ourselves that the decade between 1900 and 1910 was marked by the highest rate of foreign influx proportional to the total population ever recorded. In addition, while previous waves of immigration had come from Northern European cultures that were at least perceived to be well educated and productive, the newer immigrants came from Mediterranean cultures such as Italy, which were considered lower in status and more difficultto assimilate (see, for example, Gambino 1977). The McClures journalist George Kibbe Turner expressed this sentiment dramatically when he alluded to Italians as one of the “rough and hairy tribes which have been drawn to Chicago.” Such immigrants, Turner warned, when they were “suddenly freed from the restraints of poverty and of rigid police authority ... furnish an alarming volume of savage crime” as they “slip back into a form of city savagery” (quoted by Donovan 2006:60–1). Thus, the interzones that developed proved to be liminal grounds that, predictably, were both exciting places for cultural and culinary tourism by curious whites, as well as fertile topics for contemporary legends about the vicious and inhuman crimes that might be perpetrated on the unwary diners.

As historian Hasia R. Diner (2001) shows, this same period was marked by a dramatic shift in the American food industry, as Italian immigrants, used to a culture based on the scarcity of food, applied traditional methods of intensive farming, as well as thrifty food fabrication and marketing, to the relative prosperity of the Amer-ican landscape. Italian Americans quickly organized complex culinary networks, which began by supplying fellow immigrants with pasta and other foods identified as “old country.” As these ventures provided them with a means of moving from jobs at the subsistence level to modest levels of entrepreneurship, they increasingly provided foodstuffs and prepared “Italian” cuisine to other ethnic groups (notably Greek immigrants). In time, mainstream white populations also became aware of ostensibly Italian dishes such as spaghetti and meatballs and pizza, which, in their North Amer-ican form, were both essentially Italian American reinventions, as Diner shows. He quotes an interesting observation by a visiting Sicilian merchant, who, in the 1920s, visited an Italian restaurant in New York City, where he first encountered a number of “very fine, traditional American specialties,” one of them being “spaghetti with meatballs.” Ironically, he commented that it was so foreign to his experience of real Italian cuisine that it must have been “just for fun called Italian,” but he added that it was in fact very delicious and concluded, “I think someone in Italy should invent [such a dish] for the Italians over there” (quoted in Diner 2001:54). Pizza in the old country, Diner notes, was associated narrowly with Neapolitan cookery, and even there it was quite unlike the common Italian American staple, which was always served with tomato sauce and cheese, and typically served at a table rather than eaten on the run in the street (2001:61).

Means of producing fresh fruits and vegetables in the most intensive and economical ways possible were necessities in Italy, but in the United States they made it possible for immigrants to put together large-scale agricultural enterprises, moving products from truck farms surrounding major urban centers to low-cost pushcarts and fruit stands (Diner 2001:63). As a result, Italian Americans who achieved management positions in these networks rose quickly in economic and political status: the Del Monte Corporation was one of several Italian-dominated consortia of fresh produce wholesalers that emerged in the 1880s and became the leading suppliers of foodstuffs to cities at the turn of the century. In Indianapolis, Diner notes, the fruit stand opened by the first Sicilian immigrant to arrive in the city in 1888 quickly shifted to wholesaling as others followed his lead, and less than twenty years after his arrival, the proprietor was appointed the municipal manager of all urban markets. Food, Diner concludes, was for Italians no longer a “badge of class subjugation” but rather “a step up from poverty” (2001:64).

It was significant that the most-common term for the social danger of prostitution was “white slavery,” as many of the stereotypes previously applied to slaves were openly applied to Italians. “I do believe that the root of the trouble is laziness,” The White Slave Hell, a 1910 religious tract, said of the immigrants. “They come from countries where the highest good is just to lie in the sun and sleep. They do not, they cannot, understand the love of work, the dignity of labor, the joy of accomplishment” (quoted in Donovan 2006:30). Paradoxically, the process of entrepreneurial empow-erment that Diner documents was based precisely on Italian Americans’ propensity for intensive labor, made more effective through cooperation of ethnic factions now united by a common ethnic identity. “I saw that the great thing about [America] is that it is good for the working man,” an unnamed Italian immigrant commented in his memoirs, adding significantly, “I can go out and eat in a restaurant and sit next to anyone I want” (quoted in Diner 2001:52).

For xenophobic Americans, however, social mobility was seen as so at odds with foreign birth that, then as now, immigrants who were not poor were assumed to be operating as part of a network of criminals. The earliest Mafia-type rumors held that Italians controlled the prostitution trade and were intimately involved with it at all levels, from the enticing of naive women to paying off the police and municipal investigators. Already at this time, “gang wars” were blamed for interethnic murders, as Italian gangsters battled with Jewish and French kingpins for control of big-city crime. District Attorney Sims wrote:

there is a kind of fellowship among these foreign proprietors of refreshment parlors which would make it entirely natural and convenient for the proprietor of a city establishment of this kind, who is entangled in the “white slave” trade, to establish relations with a man in the same business and of the same nationality in the country town. I do not mean to intimate by this that all the ice cream and fruit “saloons” having foreign-born proprietors are connected with the “white slave” traffic—but some of them are, and this fact is sufficient to cause all careful and thoughtful parents of young girls to see that they do not frequent these places.

Sims’s mention of “fruit ‘saloons’” as being an interstitial location similar to the perilous ice cream parlor also connects with yet another complex of contemporary legend. Observers commented on the remarkable diversity of fruits and vegetables on display in Italian neighborhoods. New York City’s Mulberry Street (later made famous by one of Dr. Seuss’s first successful children’s books) was one such paradise of fruit saloons: one tourbook promoting ethnic tourism in Manhattan commented that, “What strikes one first is the beauty and the variety of the vegetables and fruits sold there in what is supposed to be one of the poorest quarters” (quoted in Diner 2001:63). The networks generated by Italian Americans quickly extended to foreign imports, including another exotic novelty, the banana.

This fruit, too, quickly attracted contemporary legends, notably that persons who handled it could be killed from the bites of deadly tarantulas hiding inside the bunches. By 1910 these legends were already so prevalent that the popular investigative journalist Samuel Hopkins Adams included them in a longer article titled “The Poison Bugaboo,” which debunked, Brunvand-style, a whole series of apocryphal stories about snakes, spiders, and centipedes. It is true, he admitted, that tarantulas “frequently drop out of banana bunches from South or Central America, to the discomfiture of the unsuspecting grocer,” but he could find no verifiable case of a deadly incident. He did find, however, a St. Louis news account headlined “IN TWO WEEKS Three Men Have Died From Bites of Tarantulas” and claiming that “the victims were banana handlers in the wholesale fruit district.” An “exhaustive inquiry” in the area, particularly among fruit dealers, turned up no verification, and Adams concluded, “The report was a pure fake” (S. Adams 1910:522).

Nevertheless, the legend remained active throughout the century (though often substituting black widow spiders for tarantulas as the agent), and bananas remained a potentially deadly object in folk narrative.5 A common joke told of two girls who bought bananas for the first time while on a train trip. One peels hers and takes the first bite, at which point the train enters a tunnel. “Have you started your banana yet?” she asks the other. “Well, don’t ... It makes you go blind” (Warner 2007:352). While intended to provoke laughter, like other humor based on the fruit’s phallic implications, “the laughter it inspires,” cultural historian Marina Warner says, “reverberates around its paradoxical potency and defends against the threatening associations that it sets stirring” (373).

Such associations were still being felt as recently as 2000, when an especially intense Internet flap occurred in response to a hoax message from a nonexistent “Manheim Research Institute.” This alleged that

Several shipments of bananas from Costa Rica have been infected with necrotizing fasciitis, otherwise known as flesh eating bacteria.... It is advised not to purchase Bananas for the next three weeks as this is the period of time for which bananas that have been shipped to the US with the possibility of carrying this disease.

If you have eaten a banana in the last 2–3 days and come down with a fever followed by a skin infection seek MEDICAL ATTENTION!!!

In fact, as Warner documents, the banana never fully lost its exotic associations, being a physical object from a tropical world and arriving in the marketplace having been handled by a multitude of unknown and presumably ethnic hands. Ice cream, by contrast, had no such necessary link to ethnicity. Originally, it was associated with hokey-pokey pushcart vendors and ethnic streetside parlors that, as Funderburg records, would of course serve both the ice cream and the crushed fruits that were normally served with sundaes (1995:103). The banana split may well have been one of these early concoctions, though, as Dickson notes, it did not become widely popular until the 1920s (1972:33). Once ice cream parlors became common in all communities, large and small, and as the main ingredient was provided by pan-American corporations with anonymous names such as Sealtest, the “white slavery” legend lost its potency. The banana, however, never lost its legendary potency, as it continued to be seen as a tangible link between middle-class white Americans and the mysterious Third World.

However, like any contemporary legend document, the ice cream parlor variant provides an opportunity to see and explore issues of cultural history that would otherwise remain unexpressed and difficult to trace. Keeping the threads that I have followed separately in mind, watch how they combine to form a complex visual text in the notorious graphic, “The First Step” (Figure 1), which appeared near the beginning of Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls. We see a young white woman, dressed in a stylish but sexually discreet gown that covers her up to the top of her neck, clearly a representative of the urbanized female who has come to the city to be “finished” as a marriageable property in a professional school. Ah, but she is sitting in a public place, and we see behind her a stereotyped Italian American with copious facial hair, glancing knowingly in her direction as he dispenses a drink into a glass. A closer look reveals the parlor’s attractions: “ICE CREAM” in large letters above the proprietor, “SODA” to his left, and beside this sign dangles a bunch of bananas. “Ice cream parlors of the city and fruit stores combined, largely run by foreigners,” the caption reads, “are the places where scores of girls have taken their first step downward” (Bell 1910: facing page 18).

On the dish before the woman is a mound of ice cream, the first bite of which is still in the spoon that she holds daintily in her hand. But who is her companion, the older male who has sat down beside her (recall the anonymous Italian immigrant quoted above, who boasted, “I can go out and eat in a restaurant and sit next to anyone I want”), dressed in a derby and pin-striped suit? “Does her mother know the character of the place and the man she is with?” the caption continues. And, indeed, do we? By making the face of the male partner an ambiguous mix of foreign characteristics, the artist cleverly suggests a range of possibilities: Middle Eastern, Asian, even black; in any case, a synthesis of the big city’s multicultural world and the parlor’s potency as an urban interzone, a place for culinary tourism, both in a literal and a symbolic, sexually charged sense.

Figure 1.“The First Step,” from Ernest A. Bell’s 1910 tract, Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls, or, War on the White Slave Trade.

The bananas dangle just behind the mysterious man’s hat, implicitly connecting him with the deadly tarantulas that the bunch might well contain. Attorney Sims’s warning whispers quietly in our ears: “One thing should be made very clear to the girl who comes up to the city, and that is that the ordinary ice cream parlor is very likely to be a spider’s web for her entanglement.” The liminal turf that this minimally liberated female had entered, white slave crusaders argued, was a dangerous realm where chance contacts with ethnic others would whisk the innocent one quickly from the safe home parlor into the parlors of sin. Another crusader’s tract said: “From the dance hall; from the beer garden; from the saloon; from the ball room; from the nickel theater; from the respectable theater; from the ice cream parlor; from the hotel; from the church; from the depot; from the excursion boat; from the park; from the street; from the village and from the quiet farmstead home in the hills the Octopus on the Lake draws our nation’s fairest daughters into its unsatisfied maw of lust” (quoted in Donovan 2006:26). The imagery connects exactly with the precise way in which the legend claimed that ice cream was dangerous: itself innocuous, it proved to be an especially effective means by which “our nation’s fairest daughters” (i.e., young unmarried white women) were placed in direct physical proximity to strangers with allegedly unbridled libidos. By placing oneself in an eating establishment controlled by foreigners, and by eating a treat associated with foreignness, the innocent one runs the risk of becoming foreign.

Conclusion

In 1910, ice cream was more of an ethnic novelty for most of America than pizza or sushi are today, so it came laced with the savor of foreignness. The new treat quickly entered contemporary legends of the period, and the act of walking into a place where it was sold was, in the crusaders’ words, a risk akin to entering “a spider’s web.” Like other urban interzones such as movie theaters, buses and trains, and amusement parks, ice cream parlors were culturally dangerous places precisely because they were sites in which ethnic groups met, mingled, held social intercourse, and sought out common forms of entertainment, recreation, and food. The contemporary legend was, in part, a reaction to the increasing tendency of young women to engage in culinary tourism, which in turn was a function of their nascent move toward intellectual independence, even if the education offered at the time tracked them into service professions, and marriage and homemaking.

Ice cream did not remain an ethnic temptation for long. It swiftly moved into the ordinary foodways of urban and suburban America, paralleling the increasing tendency of women to leave the safe parlors of their homes and spend time in the perilous parlors that lined city streets. Already by 1892, Pennsylvania State College had introduced the first university-level course in commercial ice cream manufacture (Funderburg 1995:66). Nationwide production of the dessert totaled only 5 million gallons in 1899; this increased sixfold to 30 million gallons in 1909; then thirtyfold to 150 million gallons in 1919. By 1920, technological advances in refrigeration and insulation created mass-production ice cream plants that relegated the neighborhood hokey-pokey vendors and the immigrant-owned ice cream parlor to the past.

Like the African origins of gallo pinto that have recently been erased from Costa Rica’s popular memory (see Theresa Preston-Werner’s article in this issue), the ethnic roots of ice cream were quickly effaced in favor of the country’s founding fathers. The bowl of cream left outside by Martha Washington for the stray kitty would have frozen into an inedible mess, but as a “foundation legend,” it helped solidify the position of the dessert as an all-American treat, universally acceptable for all classes and genders. The white slave legend, deprived of the fear of liminality that gave it power in 1910, yielded to the “poisoned needle” ecotype, and, in time, it survived only as a humorous side trip down memory lane. Or perhaps the legend fell dormant through its own success: as ice cream was being appropriated from ethnic entrepreneurs who made the innovations that allowed for its widespread marketing, punitive laws were being passed that placed strict limits on Mediterranean immigration and gave local police more power to crack down on alleged crime rings.

Nevertheless, in a small town in central New York more than a half century later, my wife was ordered not to go inside the local ice cream parlor: “fast” boys hung out there, her parents said, and besides it was owned by Greeks. The forbidden treat, seemingly Americanized by big business, still had an exotic flavor. “Eating affects us biologically and physiologically as well as socially and ideologically,” Elliott Oring observes. “Consequently, we are likely to bring a great fund of emotion to the behavior of eating.” Given this intense emotionality, he reasons, “it is not surprising that foodways serve as highly charged markers of ethnic identity both for those within a group and for those without” (1986:34 5). The inverse seems also to be true: not eating something, or at least advising your children not to eat it, is equally important to cultural identity. You are what you eat, the ice cream parlor legend suggests, and if you consume immigrant food, particularly in an establishment controlled by foreigners, then the act of ingesting it puts your own cultural identity into question.

Footnotes

For instance, on the night of February 23, 2007, Leno suggested that you could floss your teeth after eating a bucket of chicken with the leftover rat tail and commented, “Taco Bell and KFC ... is that a good combination to begin with?”

Dickson’s history of the ice cream industry (1972) does not say much about this influence, other than to note that the term “hokey-pokey” was in use as early as 1872 (83). He reproduces a number of turn-of-the-century engravings and photographs of street vendors in which their ethnicity and low social status are apparent. See especially the rather grotesque 1901 engraving on page 21, captioned “Thriftless, but affectionate, is the lower class parent. Shoes the child must do without ... but here is five cents to buy hokey-pokey.”

Details about this influential exposition, here are drawn from the original source posted on the 1904 World’s Fair: Looking Back at Looking Forward Web site (2005). The site documents the event and reproduces many period photographs and artifacts, including an admission ticket to the Cairo/Constantinople exhibit, where the ice cream cone was said to have been first fabricated.

It is also interesting that the term “sundae” was slow to be standardized, with the origin legend connecting it to the day of the week being, as with other “Eureka” stories, a later fabrication. Funderburg found the treat spelled “sundi” or even “sundhi” in early publications, both apparently stressing the dessert’s exotic nature rather than its alleged godliness (2001:105).

This legend type has continued to emerge in the United States, particularly among African Americans, and has been discussed by academics under the title “The Snake in the Greens” (e.g., Miller 2005). The emphasis in these recent versions, however, is not the specific type of food in which the dangerous animal hides but the negligence of the supermarket chain for not inspecting fruits and vegetables before putting them out for customers to handle. As such, as Fine (1989) observed, its thematic ties are with legend complexes in which deadly snakes are found in nonfood products like carpets and clothing.

References Cited

Adams, James. 2005. Alien Animals and American Angels: The Commodification and Commercialization of the Progressive-Era White Slave. Concept: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Graduate Studies (Spring). http://www.publications.villanova.edu/Concept/2005/Alien_Animals_and_American_Angels.htm, accessed February 28, 2008.

Adams, Samuel Hopkins. 1910. The Poison Bugaboo. Everybody’s Magazine23 (4): 518–25.

Bell, Ernest A., ed. 1910. Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls, or, War on the White Slave Trade. [Chicago]: G. S. Ball.

Bennett, Gillian. 2005. Bodies: Sex, Violence, Disease, and Death in Contemporary Legend. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.

Bennett, Gillian, and Paul Smith. 1993. Contemporary Legend: A Bibliography. New York: Garland.

Bristow, Edward J. 1983. Prostitution and Prejudice: The Jewish Fight against White Slavery 1870–1939. New York: Schocken Books.

Brunvand, Jan Harold. 1984. The Choking Doberman and Other “New” Urban Legends. New York: Norton.

———. 1993. The Baby Train and Other Lusty Urban Legends. New York: Norton.

———. 2000. Richard M. Dorson and the Urban Legend. In The Truth Never Stands in the Way of a Good Story! pp. 13–22. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Camp, Charles. 1989. American Foodways: What, When, Why, and How We Eat in America. Little Rock, AR: August House.

Clements, William H. 1989. Interstitiality in Contemporary Legend. Contemporary Legend 1:81–91.

Dedrick, Florence Mabel. 1910. Our Sister of the Street. In Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls, or, War on the White Slave Trade, ed. Ernest A. Bell, pp. 98–116. [Chicago]: G. S. Ball.

Dégh, Linda. 2001. Legend and Belief: Dialectics of a Folklore Genre. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Dickson, Paul. 1972. The Great American Ice Cream Book. New York: Atheneum.

Diner, Hasia R. 2001. Hungering for America: Italian, Irish, and Jewish Foodways in the Age of Migration. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Donovan, Brian. 2006. White Slave Crusades: Race, Gender, and Anti-Vice Activism. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Durbin, Nancy E., and Lori Kent. 1989. Postsecondary Education of White Women in 1900. Sociology of Education 62(1):1–13.

Ellis, Bill. 1989. Needling Whitey: The New York City Pin-Prick Incidents as Ostension. FOAFTale News 16:5–6.

———. 2001a. Aliens, Ghosts, and Cults: Legends We Live. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.

———. 2001b. Haec in Sua Parochia Accidisse Dixit: The Rhetoric of 15th Century Contemporary Legends. Contemporary Legend, n.s., 4:74–92.

Emery, David. 2000. The Great Internet Banana Scare of 2000. About: Urban Legends and Folklore. http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/fooddrink/a/killer_bananas.htm, accessed February 28, 2008.

Fine, Gary Alan. 1989. Mercantile Legends and the World Economy: Dangerous Imports from the Third World. Western Folklore 48(2):153–7.

Fine, Gary Alan, and Patricia Turner. 2001. Whispers on the Color Line: Rumor and Race in America. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Funderburg, Anne Cooper. 1995. Chocolate, Strawberry, and Vanilla: A History of American Ice Cream. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press.

Gambino, Richard. 1977. Vendetta: The True Story of the Largest Lynching in U.S. History. New York: Doubleday.

Goldin, Claudia, Lawrence F. Katz, and Ilyana Kuziemko. 2006. The Homecoming of American College Women: The Reversal of the College Gender Gap. Journal of Economic Perspectives 20(4):133–56.

Hess, Karen. 2001. The Origin of French Fries. Petits Propos Culinaires 68(November):39–48.

Langum, David J. 2007. Crossing over the Line: Legislating Morality and the Mann Act. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Long, Lucy M. 2003. Culinary Tourism: A Folkloric Perspective on Eating and Otherness. In Culinary Tourism, ed. Lucy M. Long, pp. 28–50. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press.

Marlowe, Jack. 2003. Zalabia and the First Ice-Cream Cone. Saudi Aramco World 54(4):2–5.

Miller, Dan E. 2005. Rumor: An Examination of Some Stereotypes. Symbolic Interaction 28(4):505–19.

Missouri Historical Society. 2005. 1904 World's Fair: Looking Back at Looking Forward. http://mohistory.org/content/fair/wf/html/index_flash.html, accessed February 28, 2008.

Morone, James A. 2003. Hellfire Nation: The Politics of Sin in American History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Mumford, Kevin. 1997. Interzones: Black/White Sex Districts in Chicago and New York in the Early Twentieth Century. New York: Columbia University Press.

Oring, Elliott. 1986. Ethnic Groups and Ethnic Folklore. In Folk Groups and Folklore Genres: An Introduction, ed. Elliott Oring, pp. 23–44. Logan: Utah State University Press.

Prostitution in America: Three Investigations. 1976. New York: Arno Press.

Sims, Edwin W. 1910. Menace of the White Slave Trade. In Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls, or, War on the White Slave Trade, ed. Ernest A. Bell, pp. 61–73. [Chicago]: G. S. Ball.

Smith, Bessie. [1931] n.d. I Need a Little Sugar in My Bowl. Copulatin' Blues: 16 Original Blues Vocals. Stash Records LP Recording ST-101.

Smith, Paul. 1983. The Book of Nasty Legends. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

———. 1984. On the Receiving End: When Legend Becomes Rumour. In Perspectives on Contemporary Legend: Proceedings of the Conference on Contemporary Legend, Sheffield, July 1982, ed. Paul Smith, pp. 197–215. Sheffield: CECTAL.

———. 1997. Contemporary Legend. In Folklore: An Encyclopedia of Beliefs, Customs, Tales, Music, and Art, ed. Thomas A. Green, pp. 493–5. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.

Sugar, Max. 1993. Female Adolescent Development. New York: Brunner/Mazel.

Warner, Marina. 2007. Monsters of Our Own Making: The Peculiar Pleasures of Fear. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky.

White, Luise. 2000. Speaking with Vampires: Rumor and History in Colonial Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Williams, Susan. 2006. Food in the United States, 1820s–1890. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

#urban legend #racism #white slavery #interzone #food #culture #american culture #ice cream #folklore #1910s #The Past #the way we lived then #assimilation #liminal spaces #communities #interaction #ethnic identity #americanization #transition

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biofunmy · 4 years

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What’s Holding Back #MeToo In Australia?

David Mcnew / Getty Images

The #MeToo Survivors’ March in Los Angeles, Nov. 12, 2017.

In the United States, allegations against Harvey Weinstein propelled a flood of investigations and the downfall of more than 200 public figures, but there has been a relative dearth of #MeToo stories published in Australia — even accounting for differences in population — where an astonishing 85% of women have experienced sexual harassment.

Most high profile #MeToo stories in Australia, excluding allegations made about celebrity gardener Don Burke, have been overshadowed by legal proceedings. Wolf Creek actor John Jarratt, who was accused of rape in News Corp tabloid the Daily Telegraph, launched and then dropped defamation proceedings against the newspaper after he was found not guilty. But the newspaper is still in the midst of an appeal against film star Geoffrey Rush, who successfully sued for almost $3 million over allegations he behaved inappropriately towards a costar during a Sydney Theatre Company production of King Lear. Meanwhile, former Home and Away star Craig McLachlan’s defamation proceedings against Fairfax, the ABC and a former costar are on hold while he faces criminal charges in court.

BuzzFeed News asked a survivor, journalist, editor, lawyer and academic about how hard it is to tell #MeToo stories in Australia.

Brook Mitchell / Getty Images

Geoffrey Rush speaks to the media outside the Supreme Court of New South Wales after being awarded damages in April 2019.

“We have to weigh up how much we’re willing to risk and to spend for a story that may never see the light of day.”

Junkee music editor Jules LeFevre says it is “wildly frustrating” trying to cover stories of sexual harassment and assault in the arts.

“I don’t think Australia’s music industry has even begun to reckon with #MeToo,” LeFevre told BuzzFeed News. “There are awful stories out there, some that are effectively open secrets within the industry, but it is simply impossible to report on them at the moment.”

LeFevre said once allegations are “racing across Twitter” it is difficult to cover them without being “immediately targeted by lawyers”.

“In one case we received a warning before we had even published the story, just because the subject’s legal team knew we were planning to write about it,” she said. “There have been music journalists contacted by lawyers recently about things written on social media that don’t even mention the name of the artist or artists involved in certain allegations — that’s how alert the industry is.”

A single legal letter can be enough to kill a story, she said, particularly for a small publisher with limited funds. “We have to weigh up how much we’re willing to risk and to spend for a story that may never see the light of day.”

These stories took time to tell and the delays irritate those who want to see perpetrators held accountable, she said.

“We’ve been accused of covering for abusers, for silencing victims,” she said. “That is hard to read, as we’re trying to do all we can to report on these stories, but sometimes it is simply too much of a risk to our publication, and to our own careers.”

LeFevre said Junkee was “extremely careful” in pieces dealing with allegations, from ensuring the tone is as straight as possible down to the related links, hyperlinks and article URLs, “which can all be included in defamation proceedings”.

LeFevre said she is very upfront when people contact her with allegations.

“I tell them straight away that the likelihood that we’ll be able to publish them is low,” she said. “Most of the time they understand, but it’s a horrible conversation to have.”

“The stories are there, but the legal system is preventing journalists from telling them.”

One journalist at a news organisation in Australia, who asked not to be named, spent more than two years speaking to sources about their experiences — many of whom had similar allegations about the same person, which for legal reasons the publication has so far been unable to publish.

“In practice this means that in Australia, unlike in America, it’s not just about a journalist’s motives, or whether they did everything they could to get the story, or whether that story, like the story I have been working on, has been verified to journalistic standards,” she told BuzzFeed News. “It’s about whether or not the journalist can prove that the story is true to the legal standards required by a court, and whether their masthead has the resources to fight through the courts to prove it.”

Cases of rape, sexual assault and harassment are “notoriously hard to prove”, she said, and powerful people often have a lot more money to spend in court than many news outlets.

“Even if you can prove it, those people could keep those outlets — and their sources — in court for years,” she said. “That’s a big risk to take, especially if precedent suggests you won’t win.”

Before embarking on a #MeToo investigation she asks: “Do I have the capacity and resources to tell this story and to do it justice?”

Not just time, energy, and manpower, but legal experts to manage risk as well as “an understanding of how to talk to, support and protect traumatised people”.

“These people are taking huge personal risk and could also be sued personally for defamation,” she said. “To report a #MeToo story ethically and sensitively the survivors need to feel safe at all times — and to make them feel safe, as a journalist (and a human), you want them to know they are in control of how their story is told, and you want to be available to them.”

Getting to the truth of the allegations, however, requires survivors to tell a journalist — “a stranger” — over and over again about something horrible that happened to them.

“If a detail changes, even a small one, you have to call them on it,” she said. “That feels awful for everyone.”

The victim needs to let the journalist call their friends and family to talk about something “deeply personal and horrifying that happened to them” and then show the journalist “old texts, old photos, old diaries” to be photocopied.

“And after all that, you’re going to ask them to sign a legal document saying they will go to court over it, for as long as it takes, even if it could take over their life,” she said. “No wonder so many people who have come forward in the US are wondering if it was worth it.”

The journalist said her organisation’s lawyers have said the Rush verdict “raised the risk level” for #MeToo stories.

“This isn’t about journalists being lazy or newsrooms being frightened — it’s about a law which is making it almost impossible for verified stories like ours to be told without taking on unreasonable levels of risk.”

These stories should take a long time to put together as the “stakes are so high”, she said. “But once you’ve got the story, it shouldn’t be so hard to publish.”

Dan Himbrechts / AAPIMAGE

“I thought we could all tell our stories at once.”

On Oct. 18, 2017, newsreader Tracey Spicer, who later cofounded NOW Australia, sent a widely publicised tweet, calling for stories about sexual offenders.

The day after Spicer’s tweet, Frances — a pseudonym to protect her privacy and that of her alleged abuser — decided to message Spicer with her story, about which she had stayed silent for more than a decade.

“Me too,” her Facebook message, seen by BuzzFeed News, began. “I’m sure I won’t be the only one to come forward about [the name of a media personality].”

Spicer replied within 24 hours: “[Frances], thank you so much for sharing this information. In fact, I have had many women come forward about him. He should be held to account.”

Frances detailed the behaviour of the man for whom she worked as a receptionist in her 20s. She alleged he cornered her at a work party, “stuck his tongue down her throat” and later asked her to perform oral sex on him, to which she obliged, fearing for her job security as she was being paid cash in hand and couldn’t afford to be unemployed.

Spicer, who says she has received more than 2,500 disclosures since her first tweet, replied sympathetically, describing the alleged perpetrator as a “serial sexual predator”.

“He now goes to the top of our list,” she wrote, before checking that Frances had support and acknowledging that recounting these experiences can “bring it all back”.

“I now have the resources of the ABC and Fairfax investigative units behind this. May I contact you in a week?” Spicer wrote, adding that Frances was courageous and reiterating that it wasn’t her fault.

Frances thanked Spicer for her important work.

Spicer asked for the names of other women who worked with Frances, and she sent them through, adding that they were older than her and “didn’t seem to be having the same problem” with this man.

More than a week passed without Frances hearing from Spicer. She checked in to see “how things are progressing”, and Spicer replied saying she now had the support of “several investigative units, as well as three sets of lawyers”.

Frances consented for her details to be passed onto reporters at Fairfax and the ABC — “Sure, happy to do anything I can to help” — and said she would need more information before deciding if she would go on the record.

“One day the messages just stopped and that was that,” Frances told BuzzFeed News.

In the two years since, Frances has written out various drafts of a message to Spicer, each expressing her disappointment.

“I would like to think that she had good intentions and I wanted to say something but I didn’t want to make her feel worse,” she told BuzzFeed News.

Frances said that Spicer’s initial response “appealed” to her as it was clear there would be other women involved in a potential story.

“I thought we could all tell our stories at once,” she said. “I felt like this person had the ability to do something about it. Otherwise I would have just kept it to myself as it is something really embarrassing to me.”

“The price of any fairness in these sex discrimination matters is often one’s voice.”

Associate professor at the University of New England Law School Skye Saunders says under the federal Sex Discrimination Act 1984 women who have been subjected to workplace sexual harassment must generally participate in a conciliation process with their employer and/or the perpetrator as a prescribed “first step”. This process is confidential, which she said “can be a double-edged sword”.

“On the one hand it can protect the complainant from any unwanted and inappropriate scrutinisation around an often humiliating and painful experience,” Saunders told BuzzFeed News. “On the other hand, in choosing to reach a confidential agreement, the price of any fairness in these sex discrimination matters is often one’s voice.”

Survivors are often required to sign a deed that strips them of the opportunity to speak publicly in any way about the subject of their complaint, the conciliation process and the nature of the agreement.

“It always reminds me of the scene in The Little Mermaid where Ariel signs a binding contract with Ursula in exchange for her voice, and a woman’s voice is a powerful and precious gift, particularly in the context of owning her personal experiences.”

Designer491 / Getty Images

“The ability to purchase silence obviously corrupts the process.”

Michael Bradley, managing partner of Marque Lawyers, said people who are sexually harassed usually lodge an internal complaint, which then triggers an administrative law process that is “geared entirely towards” protecting the interests of the perpetrator, not the complainant.

“The system takes all of the power and control away from the complainant,” Bradley told BuzzFeed News. “They have no rights in that system whatsoever and most of the time they’re not even entitled to be informed of what is going on.”

The system was not designed “in contemplation” of sexual harassment and complainants end up feeling “completely disenfranchised and alienated” in what can be a traumatic process, he said.

Nondisclosure agreements offered businesses settling sexual harassment claims the ability to pay to make sure complainants don’t end up going public with their story.

“The ability to purchase silence obviously corrupts the process and makes sexual harassment and whatever else a transaction,” Bradley said. “In business it is always better to settle disputes than to litigate them.”

Relative to the size of most businesses, Bradley said, these matters were “relatively cheap” to settle.

“[NDAs] mitigate against any form of cultural change and makes it far more likely that nothing good is going to come from the complaint other than the victim getting some financial compensation,” he said.

Bradley said there were many factors to take into account before encouraging a client to go public with their story.

“If working with ethical media who are going to both do the work properly and fully and behave both ethically and empathetically then [media coverage] can have a really powerful impact in persuading the perpetrator that the courts are not the right place to resolve the issue,” he said.

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rolandfontana · 5 years

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How Mining Criminal History Records Can Shape the Future of Criminal Justice

We live in an era in which the fundamental assumptions of our approach to crime and justice are being questioned. We are witnessing a reform movement that holds the potential for profound changes, and the rallying cries of this movement are sharp and critical.

It’s still too early to know where this movement will take us, but what is clear today is that the foundations of the last half-century of criminal justice policy are being called into question. The edifice called the criminal justice system is showing cracks.

Reform advocates are calling for an “end to the era of mass incarceration.” A national movement – using the hashtag “#cut50” – with a goal of reducing the prison population in half, has emerged amid calls for a long-overdue reckoning with the mistakes and abuses perpetrated in past eras of our history.

In the presidential campaign now underway, previous support for the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act is seen by many as an albatross for some candidates; and experience as a prosecutor, once thought a badge of honor, is often viewed as a sign of complicity in the ramp-up to mass incarceration.

A rich assortment of policy alternatives is now on the national agenda, with some of the boldest asking us to rethink assumptions that have guided policymakers for decades. The Square One Project at the Columbia (University) Justice Lab, for example, with which I am affiliated, is dedicated to the task of “reimagining justice.”

Working with colleagues across the country, we are asking what we call the Square One question: “How would we respond to crime if we did not rely so much on the traditional systems of law enforcement, adjudication and punishment?”

One target of these reform efforts is the long-standing practice of maintaining criminal history records. There is growing support among policymakers across the country for so-called “clean slate” measures, which would expunge or seal certain criminal records. In Pennsylvania and Utah, lawmakers have voted to automatically clear the criminal records of people convicted of some non-violent offenses who remain crime-free for certain periods of time.

Proposals to adopt “clean slate” reforms represent more than technical adjustments to a person’s criminal history. In a more fundamental level, these efforts represent a desire to counteract the damaging policies of the past. In this way, the “clean slate” movement is part of a larger effort by criminal justice reformers who are calling upon the country to engage in a process of “reckoning” with our past.

If, as some reformers argue, the nation cannot adopt more humane criminal justice policies without first coming to terms with our punitive, racist past, then how should we think about the role of those state agencies that maintain the records of that past? Which records, if any, should be expunged, and why? Should all history be erased and not even available for research purposes? Should this history be off limits for historians?

How should we balance the operational value of these records for investigative and crime-solving purposes against the calls for a “clean slate”?

Any argument to maintain these records faces another challenge. In the modern justice reform era—and more broadly in our public discourse on a variety of policy questions— we are witnessing a deep skepticism about the role of science, the objectivity of data, and the value of research. In some quarters, science and data are viewed as having supported damaging policies of the past and providing little guidance for the future.

Yet, viewed differently, these challenges might provide an opportunity to develop arguments to support the value of criminal history repositories. Can we leverage the momentum of the reform movement to elevate the importance of these records? Stated differently, is it possible to find common cause with those who are decrying the use of these records?

The answer may lie in the definition of an expansive research agenda suited to our times.

The Power of New Alliances

The first order of business is to develop a constituency for criminal history records that are complete and up to date. Here, it is easy to find common cause with the reformers who cite examples of individuals who are denied housing, jobs, or other benefits because their criminal history records are inaccurate or do not reflect final dispositions.

Two states—Florida and Connecticut—provide examples of how different approaches to data can drive policy changes. Legislatures in both states have supported initiatives designed to provide accurate and timely criminal justice data. Interestingly, these initiatives were backed by justice reform advocates.

A driving force in both initiatives is Measures for Justice (MFJ), an organization which aims to transform how we measure and understand local criminal justice systems in America by measuring every stage of the criminal justice process across the 3,000-plus counties in the U.S. [Full disclosure: Arnold Ventures is a funder of Measures for Justice.]

Florida’s initiatives represented a remarkable victory in the MFJ campaign to create criminal justice data systems across the country. The legislation required every county to collect and report the same robust set of data elements, including pretrial release decisions, along with data on indigence, ethnicity, and what type of offenders are being convicted for new offenses.

Second example: This year, the Connecticut legislature passed a law making it the first in the country to collect prosecutorial data, and hopes to use the data to study racial bias and increase prosecutor accountability and transparency. This legislation was proposed by the American Civil Liberties Union, another leader in the justice reform movement.

These two examples illustrate the emergence of a strong trend, backed by newspaper editorials, good government groups, and advocacy organizations such as ALEC, the national conservative group, which has crafted model legislation on uniform criminal data collection in an effort to use a constructive approach to data as an impetus to reform.

The reform agenda also demands accurate criminal history records, not just outcomes of court proceedings. Advocates justifiably decry the extensive use of those records in public and private employment decisions. Central to that critique is the assertion of a governmental obligation to ensure the accuracy, completeness and timeliness of those records.

Granted, the public discourse now extends far beyond those rather technical issues. But while legislatures are considering the expungement of criminal histories, they should also be demanding that these records be accurate. There is common ground between those fighting the age-old battle of adequate funding for criminal history repositories, and those fighting to limit the use of those records.

Looking beyond the need for complete criminal history repositories, are there other topics where criminal history records could support a research agenda on issues central to the reform era?

Here are my nominations for five big topics.

Documenting the Expansive Reach of the Justice System

The most profound reality of the past half-century has been the dramatic expansion of the justice system. Over the past few decades, our nation has more than quadrupled the rate of both incarceration and community supervision.

Since 1983, the rate of jail incarceration has gone up by 140 percent. Today, between 70 and 100 million Americans – one out of every three – have criminal records. Today, one out of five children has a parent who has been incarcerated. One out of every two Americans has an immediate family member who has been incarcerated.

These trends are quite well documented in the scholarly literature, but they are not well known at a state or local level. The agencies that serve as repositories of criminal history data and data on prisons and court are uniquely positioned to support this kind of research.

Imagine that the state agency responsible for criminal history records published a report each year documenting the rate of incarceration, the rate of supervision, the percent of children with an incarcerated parent and the percent of state residents who had a criminal conviction? This would support a much more robust discussion about ways to reduce the justice system’s reach in that state.

Documenting Concentrations of the Justice Footprint

The growth of the criminal justice system has not been uniformly distributed across all communities. In fact, the impact of the ramp-up in incarceration – both jails and prisons – as well as increased community supervision through probation and parole has been concentrated in a small number of neighborhoods, mostly communities of color.

Years ago, Eric Cadora documented the phenomenon of the “million-dollar block.” These are definable residential blocks where the taxpayers pay more than a million dollars a year to incarcerate the individuals who lived on that block prior to their incarceration.

If we want to develop a full understanding of the “era of punitive excess,” we should examine the geographic concentrations of the reach of the justice apparatus. Because criminal history records are typically created at an individual level, and the unit of analysis is an arrest and not a neighborhood, we do not think of these data as shedding light on the geographic concentrations of the justice system.

But using geo-coded data could transform these individual arrest records into a community-level understanding of the operations of the justice system over time.

Imagine that the state agency documented the geographic concentrations of the justice system, along with the costs of those agencies, to demonstrate that the burden of the system is borne by communities struggling with other forms of disadvantage. Perhaps this would occasion a discussion about other ways to invest those dollars in those communities.

Documenting Racial Disparities

The most pernicious dimension of our current reality of the overreach of the justice system is the impact of that system on communities of color. But simply answering the age-old question, “Are there racial disparities in the operations of the criminal justice system?” —though important— misses a larger point, namely that the aggregate impact of our criminal justice system has resulted in deep harm to communities of color and has undermined our nation’s pursuit of racial justice.

We can struggle mightily to reduce racial disparities in the operations of the justice system, but unless we examine the macro issue of the racial harms of the era of punitive excess we will miss the central reality of racial injustice.

The creative use of arrest records could document the concentration of enforcement activities in certain neighborhoods. Creative analyses of incarceration trends could document the impact of prison terms on the life course of men in communities of color.

Creative analyses of the reach of probation and parole agencies, and the ways that revocation policies have undermined community well-being, would shed light on the damaging impact of these practices. No other data resource holds as much potential to answer these questions as the criminal history repositories. Imagine that these state agencies assumed a responsibility to document the racial disparities of the operations of the justice system and create a scorecard to measure progress.

Redefining Success and Failure Beyond Recidivism

It is critical to move away from the use of recidivism as a measure of the success or failure of any program or any policy. Recidivism – whether defined as re-arrest, re-conviction or re-commitment to prison – is a poor measure of anything.

There are definitional problems: one failure is the same as multiple failures; one failure at the beginning of a three-year period is equated with a failure at the end; one failure for a serious crime is equated with a failure for a minor crime. But the larger problem with recidivism is that it does not measure success, nor does it measure anything known in the criminological literature to be associated with desistance.

Imagine, instead, that we had regular measures of employment, success in school, health outcomes, familial relationships or community participation? And imagine if we could link this data with administrative records on employment, health, housing, and social services. That would lead us to a broader view of the appropriate measures of success and failure for individuals involved in the justice system, and help reframe our definition of success for the justice-involved population.

Calculating Lives Lost to Incarceration

When we look back at the era of punitive excess, we should ask how we can create an accounting of our excessive use of punishment, particularly through long prison terms. This issue has special traction now, given the recent resurgence of interest in reparations for the damage done to African Americans through the centuries of enslavement, the American apartheid known as Jim Crow, the reign of terror through lynching and the appropriation of wealth through residential segregation.

If we think that the current era of punitive excess, with our over-reliance on punishment as a response to crime, has been powered in large measure by the same forces of racial animus, then we face a moment of reckoning not too different from the call for reparations.

The first challenge, in my view, is a simple calculation of the lives lost to incarceration. I proposed such a calculation in a recent lecture at New York Law School.

As our prisons increasingly resemble nursing homes, with geriatric wards and hospice centers, we must realize that our punitive impulses have come at a great cost. In the modern reform era we are beginning to hear calls for the retroactive application of sentencing reforms, recognizing that we have been too punitive.

Simple modeling exercises could help legislative committees, sentencing commissions, or advocacy groups understand the implications of significant reductions in prison populations, whether through parole reforms, second-look provisions, and retroactive applications of sentencing reforms such as seen in the federal system with the application of the new provisions for crack/powder.

These straight-forward calculations would help our country come to a deeper understanding of the price we have paid for the tough on crime policies that we adopted over the past half-century. They would also support the call for a reversal of those policies in the name of justice

Some might argue that such a research agenda extends beyond – in some cases, far beyond – the more traditional research agenda of organizations like SEARCH, a national organization of governor-appointees from each State and territory who are responsible for criminal justice information-sharing and management.

But today we have more academicians than ever before—and from a range of scientific disciplines—who are taking a professional interest in criminal justice reform.

The evidence they produce is critical to identifying underlying problems and creative reform-minded solutions. But if they don’t have access to high quality data, or if they have to go through a painstaking process of accessing (and inspecting, cleaning, and combining) data agency-by-agency, then we’re limiting our abilities to improve the lives of people touched by the system, as well as the lives of those whose safety is ensured, in part, by a fair and effective criminal justice enterprise.

I recognize that carrying out this expansive research agenda will require new understandings of the role of state criminal history repositories. It will be necessary to create new data-sharing agreements with other government agencies. Moreover, publishing the findings will require a level of independence more commonly associated with academic institutions than with government agencies.

We must adopt a new lens

More fundamentally, we must adopt a new lens. Traditionally, we view the world through the lens of the operations of the justice system. Justice is seen as the result of an assembly line that starts with the police and ends with the courts and corrections. The unit of analysis is a case, not a conflict or a person and the family or the community of the accused is rarely considered. The same is true for victims of crime and the harms they have experienced.

A more expansive research agenda would be focused on people, families and communities, not systems. This more ambitious agenda would seek to understand the harms caused by the system we have created over the past half century, as well as any benefits. Finally, we would expand our frame of reference to include community well-being, public trust and the legitimacy of the system of law enforcement as important indicators of the effectiveness of our criminal justice system.

Jeremy Travis

Yes, we live in an era challenging long-standing assumptions of our approach to crime and justice, including the practice of creating criminal history repositories. But perhaps the best response is to welcome these challenges and ask how those criminal histories can be recognized as an invaluable asset in addressing these legitimate critiques of the system that has been created over the past half century.

Jeremy Travis is Executive Vice President of Criminal Justice at Arnold Ventures, and former president of John Jay College of Criminal Justice. This essay is an abridged and edited version of his keynote remarks delivered Tuesday at the 2019 SEARCH Symposium on Justice Information Technology, Policy and Research in Washington, D.C.

How Mining Criminal History Records Can Shape the Future of Criminal Justice syndicated from https://immigrationattorneyto.wordpress.com/

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theconservativebrief · 6 years

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What does redemption look like in the age of #MeToo?

From Louis C.K. returning to the stage to Paige Patterson returning to the pulpit, men accused of sexual harassment, misconduct, or sexism more broadly are going on what are, in essence, comeback tours.

Meanwhile, some defenders of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, now accused of two separate instances of sexual assault and misconduct in high school and college, have argued that Kavanaugh’s youth excuses his behavior. (Kavanaugh has denied both allegations). The American Conservative columnist Rod Dreher argued that to deny the possibility of forgiveness and rehabilitation to youthful sexual offenders sets a “terrible standard” for public life.

I do not understand why the loutish drunken behavior of a 17 year old high school boy has anything to tell us about the character of a 53 year old judge. By God’s grace (literally), I am not the same person I was at 17. This is a terrible standard to establish in public life.

— Rod Dreher (@roddreher) September 17, 2018

But what forms should rehabilitation and forgiveness take? How can we, as a society, establish processes and procedures by which offenders can make restitution for their actions?

In some cases, like that of Harvey Weinstein, in which the accused are facing criminal charges, the path forward seems clear; there is a system in place designed to provide some form of justice, judgment, and rehabilitation.

But what about those who have been accused of behavior that is unethical but not criminal (or, at least, not prosecutable)? What do we want from them — and what would a sincere example of rehabilitation look like?

I spoke with L. Gregory Jones, PhD, the dean of Duke University Divinity School and author of numerous books about the nature of forgiveness, repentance, and reconciliation. Our conversation has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.

Tara Isabella Burton

So let’s start more broadly. How do you conceive of the role of forgiveness in society more generally? What does forgiveness look like? What are the mechanics of it, and what purpose does it serve both individually and societally?

L. Gregory Jones

Forgiveness is really crucial to find paths forward in the midst of brokenness, pain, suffering, wrongdoing, but it’s both a gift that is offered and something that requires a commitment to repentance, to be received well. So it’s an important way to chart a path for the future, but there also needs to be accountability for that to not be cheap and superficial.

Desmond Tutu said “there’s no future without forgiveness,” and I think that’s really important. And yet too often, it’s cheapened by a sense that it doesn’t involve accountability or penance on the part of the person has done wrong.

Tara Isabella Burton

In a 2013 talk you gave for the Faith Angle Forum on forgiveness, you discuss the way repentance and forgiveness have been commodified by PR experts. You say “forgiveness is often used as a way to excuse the past and to spin sorrow, largely as a PR way of managing a crisis,” and argue that “the fact that a lot of the characters who spin their sorrow are actually narcissists, and the problem is that narcissism makes forgiveness and repentance exceedingly difficult because the person lacks the capacity for empathy.” Assuming we can’t actually get inside a person’s head, how can we tell the difference?

L. Gregory Jones

It’s really hard to know in the moment, because what you have initially are words and then you’d have to see if the words actually match deed and emotions. One of the keys, though, that I would say is whether the words have authenticity to them.

A lot of the way of what I call “spinning sorrow” happens is when people craft a language that goes, “If people were offended, I’m sorry.” That word, “if,” usually suggests a hedging of responsibility. When someone says, “I’m sorry for what I did,” or, “I’m sorry that I harmed you,” there’s a much greater level of accountability than the kind of spin that says, “Well, I’m sorry if you had your feelings hurt.”

So the first step is: Is there a kind of owning of the responsibility by the person who did the wrongdoing? And then the second thing is: Is it followed by both actions and emotions that would convey an acknowledgment of that wrongdoing and a desire to either redress the wrongdoing or at least show that it won’t ever happen again?

Tara Isabella Burton

So, something I’m very curious about is the twofold nature of repentance in, let’s say, the #MeToo movement, or any kind of public exposure of wrongdoing. There’s the process of forgiveness or reconciliation between the victim and the accuser. And there’s a separate issue — the public apology — a demand to make restitution, in some sense, to the community. How do those two processes work together, and how do they differ? What does an accused sexual harasser owe to his victim, versus to society at large?

L. Gregory Jones

The most important step should be in terms of an apology or repentance to the person or people who’ve been harmed. That’s the most important step in the process. The broader recognition of society is really a way of saying, “I accept that my responsibility has had consequences beyond the victim himself or herself or themselves.” It’s to say that “I acknowledge that what I have done harms folks indirectly as well as people directly.” What you really want is a full-throated apology that both says, “I harmed this person, or these people directly,” and, “I’ve also compromised standards that really matter to society, and so hurt a lot of people indirectly.”

Tara Isabella Burton

So let’s transition here to talking about those societal standards. When it comes to something like #MeToo, we have two issues at stake. One is the individual responsibility of alleged abusers for their actions. The other is the responsibility of a patriarchal society that has, at least until recently, normalized behavior and promoted toxic attitudes. When we talk about responsibility and rehabilitation, how do we balance these two senses of responsibility without either “excusing” away the behavior of the abuser or failing to sufficiently weigh the vast nature of collective guilt?

L. Gregory Jones

I think it depends to a certain degree on how egregious the wrongdoing is. To what extent the conscience of a person should be stronger even than a broken or corrupt or distorted culture. There are some things that are gray areas, and that’s where the line that you’re asking about is difficult to draw, in terms of what would have been a normal cultural assumption — and so understandable, if still regrettable, the way ordinary people had bad assumptions and bad habit.

I think most of the time, particularly at the societal level, it takes the more egregious examples that highlight a lot more of the gray area. I don’t think there’s any doubt, for example, that Harvey Weinstein’s behavior was reprehensible in relation to a lot of women over a long period of time. Even in a culture where the standards may have been different, he still was way beyond acceptable.

That is a hallmark to then start looking at more of the gray areas. Every case is different, and you have to look at the particularities of every situation. I don’t think in general we ought to excuse bad behavior because of cultural assumptions. Even though it might mitigate the forcefulness with which we judge that behavior to have been wrong.

Tara Isabella Burton

Can you think of any stories of rehabilitation and repentance from the #MeToo era that you’d hold up as a model of what a good example of the forgiveness process looks like?

L. Gregory Jones

I can think of a lot more bad examples. The challenge is that the best examples of repentance don’t require a public outcry and exposure, but wanting to clear one’s conscience on their own. Rather than waiting to be found out by somebody, somebody who would take the initiative and say, “I’ve got this in my past and I want to come clean about that.” That’s a much harder task to do, and particularly in this environment, it’s risky because things often feel much more punitive than focused on real rehabilitation. The environment makes it harder when it looks like, as soon as somebody is accused, there’s a rush to judgment.

But in general, much of the #MeToo movement has been an important moment of women acknowledging pain and events that have been kept quiet or buried for many decades. And now being able to talk about it, because the social circumstances have changed, is the most important step. What I wish was happening is more perpetrators wanting to come clean rather than waiting for something to become a very public and dramatic thing.

Tara Isabella Burton

Okay, so let’s speak a little more broadly, not about those accused of sexual misconduct but more generally. What’s a good example of a rehabilitative process?

L. Gregory Jones

What I would point to is actually, I think, probably the process in South Africa [after apartheid] had very good impact — the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. People who came forth and confessed to significant wrongdoing — sexual, violent, financial. There was a process of both confession and acknowledgment of responsibility and a genuine desire for reconciliation with victims. The process had a huge amount of integrity to it. The victims often showed considerable heroism in being willing to take steps toward a different kind of future. The difference I see there was that there was really a quite well-structured and well-designed concept to enable that to happen. It was almost like a secular liturgy.

We have much less of that in the US; far more of it has been a kind of dynamic where somebody does wrong, their PR team comes out with a kind of “sorry people were offended.” They take a ritual departure for a few months, then resurface again on a kind of “now I’m much better” tour. But it doesn’t have much of a genuine process of repentance or desire to live literally into the future. Forgiveness isn’t only about healing the past; it’s also about creating a different kind of future. We’re not very good as a culture right now about transposing the healing of the past into pointing to a different future.

Tara Isabella Burton

I’m struck by a word in your answer there: “liturgy,” a word we usually associate with, say, the ritualistic structure of a Catholic Mass. In your 2013 talk, you quote a book by former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, who says we’ve lost a sense of remorse as a culture. And, of course, forgiveness and repentance often have quite specific, ritualized forms within theological contexts: confession in a Catholic Church, say, or Yom Kippur in the Jewish tradition.

But, of course, we’re living in an increasingly religiously diverse and in many ways increasingly secular society. To what extent are some of our difficulties figuring out how to conceptualize repentance, as a society, the result of lacking a cohesive, shared vocabulary within which to contextualize what forgiveness and repentance mean?

L. Gregory Jones

In countries like the US or South Africa where you have multiple faiths, you nonetheless have a sense — and this is kind of the power that Nelson Mandela or Desmond Tutu exhibited in South Africa, or Abraham Lincoln had in the US — that the future involves some kind of healing of the past, and forgiveness, and in the process of doing that, you need some kind of ritual or liturgy to make that possible. It doesn’t have to be theological or religion-specific, but something that has a clear formula.

The courtroom has its own version of liturgies. As do some restorative justice processes. The point is to say that when possible, even without any convictions about God, a process that enables somebody to confess and somebody else to release them from the burden of that in a [formalized] process of exchange of words spoken or some kind of relationship repair.

In Yom Kippur, for example, there is a ritualized approach that’s designed to create a structure designed to make reconciliation more likely than not. We depend on those kinds of rituals. You even see them in [old-style] etiquette books like Gloria Vanderbilt’s — some of the assumptions of forgiveness articulated in those rituals. The problem is that we’ve lost most of those rituals, even in a secular sense, and that’s weakened us as a culture as a whole. In a religious or secular context, there’s something that inspires us about seeing somebody doing that: offering forgiveness.

Tara Isabella Burton

There’s been a wealth of literature, though, about — particularly for women in instances of sexual abuse — the glorification of forgiveness that puts an undue burden on victims to re-traumatize themselves in order to heal a community. A woman is pressured to forgive her abuser, and thus becomes doubly victimized by the idea that his rehabilitation is her job. How do we avoid that pitfall?

L. Gregory Jones

I think it’s important to remember that forgiveness should always be a gift and not an expectation. It’s unfair to expect any person who has been victimized, especially if it’s raw, to be ready to forgive.

And — this is particularly important in domestic violence and other kinds of forgiveness — the expectation of forgiveness is also used as a weapon to punish and perpetuate a cycle. It’s often the case in domestic violence, for example, where the abuser will come and say, “you need to forgive me because you’re a Christian” and the person feels obligated to do that. All that does is perpetuate and intensify the violence rather than remedying it.

To even have it be viable expectation as a societal level, forgiveness needs to be understood as the offer of a gift, and it needs to be linked to a presumption that the other party or parties are going to engage in repentance. And that’s not just a onetime gesture. It’s a commitment to a different way of life.

Tara Isabella Burton

As I scan the media in recent weeks, reading about, say, Louis C.K.’s return to comedy or Matt Lauer’s attempt to return to TV, there’s a lot of discourse about “are we ready for this?” Well, who is we? Who gets to officially make that call about who gets rehabilitated, or gets to return to public life or employment, and when? We don’t really have a cohesive society sense of authority — of who is the person or body who gets to make that call.

L. Gregory Jones

It’s the tail end of celebrity culture. The whole process is messed up. There’s not any kind of decision-making or authority other than what people think can be tolerated or what pushback there is going to be. I think the deeper question is, when there’s a broader organization, the expectation should be embedded in the whole organization.

So for Matt Lauer, say, [the question] isn’t whether he can come back and be a celebrity again, but rather what kind of organization NBC wants to be. What kind of expectations does it have embedded in its culture for its employees across the board. Lauer should be held as accountable as a person working in the mailroom. The questions about rehabilitation is, what would it mean for them to still be a viable member of a community?

There is a danger of holding people too accountable — for which there’s never any opportunity for redemption. The greatest example of this is in the book and Broadway musical Les Misérables [the story of an escaped convict, Jean Valjean, and the police officer, Javert, who doggedly pursues him]. Javert is literally hell-bent on ensuring that Jean Valjean never has a future anywhere with anyone at any time. And that can be as destructive as a kind of spinning sorrow that says, “Just stay out of the public limelight for two or three months and you can come right back.”

We need a broader and healthier discussion about the dynamics of forgiveness, repentance, and community — in organizations and more broadly — and to recognize that every case is different. We need to look at every instance as it occurs, in public or our personal lives, and recognize the differences and the complexity. So it’s not that we have a conversation [and] then we know how to apply the rule in every circumstance. We have to develop the kind of practical wisdom of both the broader conversation and then the ability to make very careful distinctions.

Original Source -> A scholar of forgiveness explains what makes a good public apology for sexual misconduct

via The Conservative Brief

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itsnelkabelka · 6 years

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Statement to Parliament: Minister for Asia makes a statement to the House on the Rakhine crisis in Myanmar

I am grateful to the Hon Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) for chairing this debate, and I pay tribute to all her industry and patience as Chair of the petitions committee.

Today’s debate has been inspired by a number of petitions which attracted hundreds of thousands of signatures, demonstrating the British public’s heartfelt concern at the desperate plight of the Rohingya.

The intensity of this domestic concern was something I saw for myself last month. I met representatives from the British Rohingya community and the British Bangladeshi community, at an exhibition of photographs from the refugee camps held in Spitalfields. Some of those present had family in the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar. Others had themselves been brought up as refugees from previous waves of Rohingya flight over the decades. They were close to despair.

As I reassured them that night, I reassure Parliament today:

Our Foreign Office and Department for International Development will not forget your plight.

I shall set out what action we have taken so far in response to this crisis, and what we plan to do from here.

Many of the petitions called for an end to the violence. Needless to say, this is what we want to see too.

I have been personally horrified by the survivors’ accounts of what they experienced at the hands of the Burmese military in Rakhine State. This unspeakable violence including rape and savage assault is appalling and must end.

It is also obvious that while the violence continues, there can be no hope of reassuring the Rohingya that they would be able to return safely, voluntarily, or with dignity.

As I said in my statement to the House last month, the violence that broke out in August 2017 was only the latest episode in a long-running cycle of persecution suffered by the Rohingya in Rakhine.

We have been urging the Burmese civilian government to take action to stop the situation deteriorating since it took office two years ago.

The UN estimates that since last August, more than 680,000 people have fled from Rakhine into Bangladesh.

The UK Government has repeatedly condemned the violence, as have the British people.

We shall and we must continue to work tirelessly with our international partners to seek a lasting solution to this terrible situation.

Last September the Foreign Secretary convened a meeting of Foreign Ministers in New York, calling on the Burmese authorities to end the violence against the Rohingya community.

In November the UK proposed and secured a UN Security Council Presidential Statement on Burma, which called on the Burmese authorities urgently to stop the violence, create the necessary conditions for refugee returns and hold to account those responsible for acts of violence.

I continue to discuss the crisis with counterparts across Asia, including in Malaysia and Japan last week.

Tomorrow the Foreign Secretary will co-chair a meeting on the Rohingya crisis with fellow Commonwealth Foreign Ministers. We shall explore how to support Bangladesh, and how to ensure Burma responds to international concerns.

The Foreign Secretary will then discuss the crisis at next Sunday’s G7 Foreign Ministers meeting, which I expect will send a strong and united message to the Burmese authorities.

At the end of this month, the UK will be co-leading the visit of the UN Security Council to Burma and Bangladesh. We are confident that visiting the camps in Bangladesh, and seeing the situation in Rakhine, will further strengthen Council members’ resolve to find a solution to this crisis.

I also hope the visit will prompt the Burmese authorities to accelerate the implementation of the Presidential Statement’s call for action.

A number of the petitions referred to the violence as genocide.

The UK Government has recognised that there has been ethnic cleansing, and indeed that what occurred may amount to genocide or crimes against humanity.

However, genocide is a legal definition that can only be declared by a court of law, not by politicians or governments.

As Burma is not a party to the Rome Statute, the International Criminal Court would only be able to consider a case of genocide if Burma refers itself to the ICC or the UN Security Council refers Burma to the ICC.

The UK has, with EU partners, already called on Burma to refer itself to the ICC. So far it has not.

We continue to judge there to be insufficient support amongst Security Council members for an ICC referral – though we keep this judgement under review.

However, I can report today that there is some movement on accountability.

Bangladesh has ratified the Rome Statute. The ICC Prosecutor last week asked the Court to rule on whether it would have jurisdiction over the forced displacement of Rohingya from Burma into Bangladesh, which if proven would constitute a crime against humanity.

We await the International Criminal Court’s ruling with keen interest. The UK stands ready to support the Court should it decide it has jurisdiction.

Also last week, the Burmese military announced the conviction of seven of its soldiers for killing Rohingya villagers at Inn Din. They have been sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment.

The Burmese military do not have a good record of prosecuting and convicting their own. I believe this judgement shows that international pressure for accountability is having some effect.

We have been clear with the Burmese authorities that they must do more. The international community needs to see a full, independent and transparent investigation into all of the human rights violations in Rakhine.

In the meantime, we shall continue to support efforts to collate and collect evidence for use in any future prosecution, and continue to press for the release of the two Burmese Reuters journalists facing trial for investigating the Inn Din massacre.

Ultimately, we want the Rohingya to return to their homes voluntarily, safely, and in a dignified manner. This was one of the issues the Foreign Secretary raised with State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi when he visited Burma in February.

He also called on Burma to allow the involvement of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in this process.

Since then I can report some further progress: the Burmese Government has proposed a Memorandum of Understanding, to agree how UNHCR will be involved. UNHCR are preparing their response. If and when it is finalised, the UK will push for the swift implementation of this agreement once finalised.

We shall also be examining in detail how we can support the longer-term change in Burma that the Rohingya and other persecuted minorities so desperately need to see.

I am overseeing a review of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office’s Conflict, Stability & Security Fund for Burma. We are planning to launch new pilot projects this year to help catalyse the democratic transition and strengthen the laws and protections the Rohingya and other minorities in Burma so urgently require.

Turning to the question of sanctions, another issue raised in the petitions: we have not advocated sanctions on particular sectors or entities in the Burmese economy and its financial system. It can be difficult to predict or control the effect of financial sanctions on other parts of the economy.

We do not want inadvertently to make the lives of ordinary Burmese people more difficult.

However, this does not mean that we should rule out sanctions altogether: far from it.

We have been proactive in advocating sanctions that restrict the finances and freedom of movement of senior military commanders who were directly involved in the atrocities in Rakhine last August and September.

We have secured agreement on this from all EU member states, and expect implementation over the next month.

We should remember that this crisis is above all a human catastrophe. Once again I commend the generosity of the Government and people of Bangladesh in providing refuge for so many people in desperate need.

The UK is, and will remain, a leading donor to the humanitarian effort in Bangladesh. We have committed an additional £59 million since last August, including matching £5 million of public donations to the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal.

With the monsoon and cyclone season nearly upon us, we are doing everything we can to support Bangladesh’s efforts to improve their disaster preparedness and protect the refugees.

My Right Honourable Friends the Foreign Secretary and International Development Secretary last month wrote to Bangladesh’s Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, to reiterate the UK’s offer to help, and call on her as a matter of urgent priority to release more land for refugees.

The UK is supplying:

reinforced shelter and sandbags for 158,000 people,

safe water for 250,000;

and 5,000 toilets.

We continue a dialogue with the Bangladeshi authorities to ensure that aid can get through during the rainy season, by improving drainage, maintaining access roads, and reinforcing embankments and walkways.

We are working with UN agencies to make site improvements to the refugee camps, in preparation for heavy rainfall.

We also actively engaged in vaccination campaigns against cholera, measles and diphtheria, and UK aid is training healthcare workers to vaccinate as many children as possible before the rainy season.

To conclude, the petitions have demonstrated the strength of feeling of the British people about the plight of the Rohingya. I hope this debate and my response have provided some reassurance to petitioners that their MPs, their Parliament and the Government feel equally strongly.

We are doing everything we can to keep the refugees safe in the camps, while also keeping up the pressure on the Burmese authorities to end the violence, hold perpetrators to account and enable the safe return of the Rohingya to their homes.

I cannot deny that progress is much slower than any of us would like, but the British public – and indeed the Burmese authorities – should be in no doubt of our determination to stay the course.

Note that this version has not been checked against delivery. The full statement and debate can be viewed on Hansard

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corvwase · 7 years

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First College Essay from 2012

This is the first essay I wrote in college. My opinions since then have drastically changed. I’m not a liberal blindly following the crowd. As this was my first essay you can expect it to be quite bad. So there.

Today I challenged a man known by the name of Lars Larson.

You can either cringe at the name, or smile and wait for his debating to start. He is a talk show host, and a man in favor of the death penalty, or capital punishment. I am not. I challenged his remarks with respect, requesting that he read an essay I wrote on the corrupt system of the court, and how many have been convicted of wrongdoing when they were quite innocent. Thus, the real criminal runs scot-free. I asked him to take into account what I had written, and in a way, backed him into a corner; stating that either he could read it on-air, or not. If he didn't, he would be seen as afraid for his own opinion and such. Very interesting. He is well-known, famous, and one of the most listened to talk show hosts. We'll see how this turns out. But first, I will show what my in-class presentation/debate looked like.

In short, it looked like this. This is not a paper, it is just dialogue to depict what I stated in the beginning of the debate.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My topic for Essay Four is capital punishment, or CP. My position: I do not support, or approve, of the death sentence. I could go on and on just like anyone else who doesn’t support CP, but I will just focus on two issues that I find with CP, and argue their points.

My two arguments are: False Eyewitness Testimony, and Inhumane Methods.

I’ll first say a couple of things about mistaken eyewitness testimony.

One, there is a natural phenomenon that occurs within the human brain called ‘change blindness’. Summed up, this basically means that an eyewitness to, say, murder, can be completely wrong in their case. And to think that an innocent human being can have their life snuffed out based on eyewitness testimony. There have been numerous cases where people were sentenced to fifty or more years in prison, or even the death sentence, based solely on eyewitness testimony.

In June of 2010, not two years ago, the British Psychological Society published a study, stating, “Change blindness can cause mistaken eyewitness identification.”

What were they researching?

They were studying the effects of change blindness and crime severity on eyewitness identification accuracy.

How was it done?

They performed a simulated criminal act and examined change blindness’ effect on subjects’ accuracy for identifying the perpetrator in a photo spread.

What did they find?

Well, that in itself is a little unnerving.

Subjects who viewed videos designed to induce change blindness were more likely to falsely identify the innocent actor relative to those who viewed control videos, meaning videos with no actor and the actual criminal actor.

Crime severity did not influence detection of change (change in actors portraying perpetrators); however, it did have an effect on eyewitness accuracy. Subjects who viewed a more severe crime ($500 theft) made fewer errors in perpetrator identification than those who viewed a less severe crime ($5).

You might be wondering what change blindness and unconscious transference really are. Unconscious transference occurs when an eyewitness mistakenly identifies a person as having committed a crime, but actually has encountered that person in a different context.

Example: Suspect seems familiar in a lineup because he/she was previously seen in a mug shot. That’s a bit scary.

Change blindness: a phenomenon that occurs when a person fails to detect large changes between one viewed scene and another.

Example: This is a study that happened for real. An experimenter asks a pedestrian for directions. Two people pass between them carrying a door. The first experimenter changes place with a second one and continues to talk to the pedestrian as if nothing unusual occurred, regardless of the fact that the second one looks completely different, is clothed differently, and is a different race. One half of the people failed to notice the change.

Another example: #1 approaches worker behind counter; asks to participate in study. After signing a paper and handing it back, #1 crouches down behind counter and #2 takes his place. Seventy-five percent of people failed to notice the change.

Although only 17 people detected a change in actors in the actor change groups (5% people exposed) more than 1/3 of subjects in these groups I.D. ed the second actor. This indicates unconscious transference. (change out is after crime is committed.) In a situation where a witness does not notice that an innocent person has replaced a perpetrator in a visual scene, he/she is likely to wrongly i.d. the innocent person.

95% of subjects experienced change blindness (almost everyone thought the second actor was the perpetrator, when he was an innocent).

The Center For Wrongful Convictions identified and analyzed the cases of 86 defendants (84 men, two women) who had been sentenced to death but legally exonerated.

Eyewitness testimony was the only evidence used against 33% of them. (38.4%).

Not cool.

Inhumane methods:

The electric chair, last used in 1976

The first person to be executed by the electric chair was William Kemmler in New York's Auburn Prison on August 6, 1890; the "state electrician" was Edwin F. Davis. The first 17-second passage of current through Kemmler caused unconsciousness, but failed to stop his heart and breathing. The attending physicians, Edward Charles Spitzka and Charles F. Macdonald, came forward to examine Kemmler. After confirming Kemmler was still alive, Spitzka reportedly called out, "Have the current turned on again, quick, no delay." The generator needed time to re-charge, however. In the second attempt, Kemmler was shocked with 2,000 volts. Blood vessels under the skin ruptured and bled, and the areas around the electrodes singed. The entire execution took about eight minutes. George Westinghouse later commented that "they would have done better using an axe,"[7] and a witnessing reporter claimed that it was "an awful spectacle, far worse than hanging."[8 ]

Pedro Medina was convicted of murder and grand larceny.

Blue and orange flames up to a foot long shot from the right side of Mr. Medina's head and flickered for 6 to 10 seconds, filling the execution chamber with smoke.

The most common now: lethal injection

On December 13, 2006, Angel Nieves Diaz was not executed successfully in Florida using a standard lethal injection dose. Diaz was 55 years old, and had been sentenced to death for murder. Diaz did not succumb to the lethal dose even after 35 minutes, necessitating a second dose of drugs to complete the execution. At first, a prison spokesman denied Diaz had suffered pain, and claimed the second dose was needed because Diaz had some sort of liver disease.[51] After performing an autopsy, the Medical Examiner, Dr. William Hamilton, stated that Diaz’s liver appeared normal, but that the needle had been pierced through Diaz’s vein into his flesh. The deadly chemicals had subsequently been injected into soft tissue, rather than into the vein.[52] Two days after the execution, then-Governor Jeb Bush suspended all executions in the state and appointed a commission “to consider the humanity and constitutionality of lethal injections.”[53] The ban was lifted by Governor Charlie Crist when he signed the death warrant for Mark Dean Schwab on July 18, 2007.[54] On November 1, 2007 the Florida Supreme Court unanimously upheld the state's lethal injection procedures.[55]

A study published in 2007 in the peer-reviewed journal PLoS Medicine suggested that "the conventional view of lethal injection leading to an invariably peaceful and painless death is questionable".[56]

The execution of Romell Broom was abandoned in Ohio on September 15, 2009, after prison officials failed to find a vein after 2 hours of trying on his arms, legs, hands and ankle. This has stirred up intense debate in the United States about lethal injection

That’s sick. Poor man.

I could go on. But I wont. There is too much to talk about and too little time.

I’d like you to make your own opinion, your own position, even if you have had one previously. Just rethink. Expand on what it really is. Do you believe torture should be legal? Well, here it is. I don’t think you would enjoy that. Some people are on death row for thirty years before they're executed. That’s a long time to think about your prolonged death sentence. In prison forever, then killed when you're old and tired.

Thank you .

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And so a couple of students had their views of the sentence do a 180-degree turn, and I was also met with an upset colleague. They fired a few accusations and questions, to which I fired back with equal vigor, answering and holding their accusations to the ground. I cannot say I did not enjoy it, but it gave me strength to debate in a respectful manner; to argue with appreciation for the other party, and to give capital sentencing a whole new aspect.

This text below is my essay that I wrote. I hope you enjoy. Or not.

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Jesse Maes

Matt Schumacher

WR 121

December 11th, 2012

The Reality of Misguided Trials, and the Victims of Capital Punishment

Your Eye Assists Murder

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His hands tremble madly, and his body writhes inside of his black and grey suit. Clean and proper, but knowing the inevitable. His eyes cloud with tears as he hears the dreaded words from the judge behind the big maple desk.

“The jury has reached the verdict. You are hereby sentenced to death by lethal injection at the Allan B. Polunsky Unit in Texas.”

He is led away by two officers, sobbing quietly.

This is what the end of a murder trial looks like in Texas. Many other states have a death penalty policy, as well. This man was just convicted of murder and rape, but the little evidence such as eyewitness testimony was enough to sentence him to death.

My position on capital punishment; I do not support, or approve, of the death sentence. I could go on and on just like anyone else who doesn’t support CP, but I will just focus on two issues that I find with CP, and argue their points.

My two arguments are false eyewitness testimony and inhumane methods.

I’ll first say a few things about mistaken eyewitness testimony.

In June of 2010, not two years ago, the British Psychological Society published a study, stating, “Change blindness can cause mistaken eyewitness identification.”

What were they researching?

They were studying the effects of change blindness and crime severity on eyewitness identification accuracy.

How was it done?

They performed a simulated criminal act and examined change blindness’ effect on subjects’ accuracy for identifying the perpetrator in a photo spread.

What did they find?

Well, that in itself is a little unnerving.

Example: Suspect seems familiar in a lineup because he/she was previously seen in a mug shot. That’s a bit scary.

Change blindness: a phenomenon that occurs when a person fails to detect large changes between one viewed scene and another.

Although only 17 people detected a change in actors in the actor change groups (5% people exposed) more than 1/3 of subjects in these groups I.D. ed the second actor. This indicates unconscious transference. (Change out is after crime is committed.) In a situation where a witness does not notice that an innocent person has replaced a perpetrator in a visual scene, he/she is likely to wrongly i.d. the innocent person.

95% of subjects experienced change blindness (almost everyone thought the second actor was the perpetrator, when he was an innocent).

The Center For Wrongful Convictions identified and analyzed the cases of 86 defendants (84 men, two women) who had been sentenced to death but legally exonerated.

Eyewitness testimony was the only evidence used against 33% of them. (38.4%).

If this particular evidence is all that is used to convict someone of a crime, and they are put on Death Row, then what’s the difference between that and outright stabbing them to death?

Change blindness is often used in pranks; to confuse a passerby, or startle a store manager. But when it comes down to reality, even for rape or lesser crimes, there should be no eyewitness testimony that is depended on. Sure, it can be taken into account, but it should not be the sole piece of evidence against them.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, forty-five out of eighty-six executions were wrongfully caused by eyewitness testimony.

Capital punishment is absolutely wrong because it is extremely difficult to completely and one-hundred percent identify someone as a killer. Methods are unreliable, and even DNA has been shown to be a faulty way of testing. According to the Council For Responsible Genetics,

“Although generally quite reliable (particularly in comparison with other forms of evidence often used in criminal trials), DNA tests are not now and have never been infallible. Errors in DNA testing occur regularly. DNA evidence has caused false incriminations and false convictions, and will continue to do so. Although DNA tests incriminate the correct person in the great majority of cases, the risk of false incrimination is high enough to deserve serious consideration in debates about expansion of DNA databases. The risk of false incrimination is borne primarily by individuals whose profiles are included in government databases (and perhaps by their relatives). Because there are racial, ethnic and class disparities in the composition of databases, the risk of false incrimination will fall disproportionately on members of the included groups.”

Since deoxyribonucleic acid testing in trials can be faulty, why is it still responsible for the vast majority of criminal cases’ testing methods? This leaves a minute possibility for error in this specific field. Therefore, should there be room for a man to be convicted of a murder based on DNA testing? This means that, setting eyewitness and all other evidence types, a person could be executed for nothing, and the real criminal getting away scot-free. No human life is worth being ended because one simply thinks that they are guilty.

The number of executions since 1976 is 1,317. Over a thousand killed convicts. Many were the actual criminals, but there have been over 10 inmates on Death Row that have been wrongfully convicted---just in the last 22 years.

Inhumane methods:

The electric chair, last used in 1976

The first person to be executed by the electric chair was William Kemmler in New York's Auburn Prison on August 6, 1890; the "state electrician" was Edwin F. Davis. The first 17-second passage of current through Kemmler caused unconsciousness, but failed to stop his heart and breathing. The attending physicians, Edward Charles Spitzka and Charles F. Macdonald, came forward to examine Kemmler. After confirming Kemmler was still alive, Spitzka reportedly called out, "Have the current turned on again, quick, no delay." The generator needed time to re-charge, however. In the second attempt, Kemmler was shocked with 2,000 volts. Blood vessels under the skin ruptured and bled, and the areas around the electrodes singed. The entire execution took about eight minutes. George Westinghouse later commented that "they would have done better using an axe," and a witnessing reporter claimed that it was "an awful spectacle, far worse than hanging."

Pedro Medina was convicted of murder and grand larceny.

“Blue and orange flames up to a foot long shot from the right side of Mr. Medina's head and flickered for 6 to 10 seconds, filling the execution chamber with smoke.”

Jesse Joseph Tafero

“A particularly appalling instance of this took place on May 4th, 1990, in the case of Jesse Joseph Tafero in Florida. According to witnesses, when the executioner flipped the switch, flames and smoke came out of Tafero's head, which was covered by a mask and cap. Twelve-inch blue and orange flames sprouted from both sides of the mask. The power was stopped, and Tafero took several deep breaths. The superintendent ordered the executioner to halt the current, and then try it again. And again!

Apparently a synthetic sponge, soaked in brine, had been substituted for a natural one. This reduced the flow of electricity to as little as 100 volts, and ended up torturing the prisoner to death. According to the state prison medical director, Frank Kligo, who attended, it was "less than aesthetically attractive."

Another electrocution in Florida went seriously wrong in 1997 when Pedro Medina was executed on the 25th of March. Witnesses saw a blue and orange flame shoot 6-10 inches out of the helmet covering Medina's head. It burned for about 10 seconds, filling the chamber with acrid smoke and the smell of burning flesh.

An investigation by prison officials blamed the flare-up on a corroded brass screen used in the helmet.

Michael Morse and Jay Wiechart, both experienced in electric chair design and operation, blamed the malfunction on a dry sponge used in conjunction with a wet sponge in the helmet.

Electrocution was challenged through the Florida courts, by death row inmate Leo Jones as a "cruel and unusual" punishment, something which is banned under the American constitution.”

The most common now: lethal injection

“On December 13, 2006, Angel Nieves Diaz was not executed successfully in Florida using a standard lethal injection dose. Diaz was 55 years old, and had been sentenced to death for murder. Diaz did not succumb to the lethal dose even after 35 minutes, necessitating a second dose of drugs to complete the execution. At first, a prison spokesman denied Diaz had suffered pain, and claimed the second dose was needed because Diaz had some sort of liver disease. After performing an autopsy, the Medical Examiner, Dr. William Hamilton, stated that Diaz’s liver appeared normal, but that the needle had been pierced through Diaz’s vein into his flesh. The deadly chemicals had subsequently been injected into soft tissue, rather than into the vein. Two days after the execution, then-Governor Jeb Bush suspended all executions in the state and appointed a commission “to consider the humanity and constitutionality of lethal injections.” The ban was lifted by Governor Charlie Crist when he signed the death warrant for Mark Dean Schwab on July 18, 2007. On November 1, 2007 the Florida Supreme Court unanimously upheld the state's lethal injection procedures.

A study published in 2007 in the peer-reviewed journal PLoS Medicine suggested that "the conventional view of lethal injection leading to an invariably peaceful and painless death is questionable".

I could go on. But I won’t. There is too much to talk about and too little time.

I’d like you to make your own opinion, your own position, even if you have had one previously. Just rethink. Expand on what it really is. Do you believe torture should be legal? Well, here it is. I don’t think you would enjoy that. Some people are on death row for thirty years before they’re executed. That’s a long time to think about your prolonged death sentence. In prison forever, then killed when you’re old and tired.

I believe it is as wrong as the legal system can get. It should be no one’s decision to end another person’s life. That is not up to us; it is not for us to carry out.

SOURCES CITED:

Agora. "Stanford Journal of Legal Studies- Stanford Law School." 5 april 1999. agorastanford. 2012. 11 december 2012.

capital punishment uk. "The Electric Chair." unknown unknown unknown. capitalpunishmentuk. article. 11 december 2012.

DPIC Reporter. "Descriptions of Execution Methods." 13 november 2011. DPIC. document. 11 december 2012.

Northwestern Law Pritxker Legal Rsearch Center. Northwestern Law Pritxker Legal Rsearch Center. 23 august 2012. document. 11 january 2012.

Radelet, Prof. Michael L. "Some Examples Post Furman Botched Execution." 1 october 2010. DPIC. report. 11 december 2012.

Reporter, AmnestyUSA. "Death Penalty Facts." 1 january 2012. Amnesty USA. document. 11 december 2012.

Unknown. "Death Penalty Sites." 1 January 2012. Death Penalty Information Center. Document. 11 December 2012.

—. "Innoncence and the death penalty." 1 january 2012. DPIC. document. 11 december 2012.

wikipedia. "Capital Punishment." unknown Unknown 2012. Wikipedia. article. 11 december 2012.

Wikipedia. "Change Blindness." 19 march 2012. Wikipedia. 2012. 11 december 2012.

—. "Lethal Injection." 12 february 2012. Wikipedia. article. 11 december 2012.

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