And Liberty and Justice for All

It is the first week of July and once again time to congratulate ourselves on our love of freedom, on our democracy and dedication to equality. Reminding ourselves of our wealth and power, our preeminent position in the world, we can fill all our hearts with genuine satisfaction.

It is also a good time to reread Ta-Nehisi Coates' article in the Atlantic Magazine of June 2014, "A Case for Reparations." (You can easily find it on the Internet.) By telling the stories of a few African-Americans who succeeded in buying and holding on to their houses in spite of being all their lives exposed to fraud and robbery by whites, Coates reminds us that American dedication to liberty and equality has some large exceptions. It only very intermittently applies to African Americans.

Coates stresses the pain caused African-Americans, especially young ones, when they themselves are insulted and denigrated or when they see others treated without respect. It is extremely difficult to grow up with a healthy sense of your own capabilities and merit, if you find yourself, your family, your friends consistently treated shabbily and the society as a whole refusing to acknowledge that.

This psychological damage of racism reminds those of us whites who are trying genuinely not to participate or support anti-black racism, that the damages will continue to be done regardless of our resistance to our own racism. As long as American society accepts the denigration of African-Americans by some of its members and by its government, the best and most well-meaning efforts of some of us will not be enough to achieve genuine justice and equality.

You may point to the passage of civil rights legislation, you may point to a black president, but the second class status of African-Americans has not changed. If you have any doubt about that, read the stories told by Coates. 

If you have any doubt consider the consistent denial by white people that there is any problem for African-Americans, which is not of their own making. The diagnoses change over time: African-Americans suffer because they do not manage to form families in the same way as white middle-class Americans. They do not do well in school. They get involved with drugs. Black Americans are disproportionately imprisoned or under the supervision of the parole system. None of that, many whites insist, is our fault.

In his article, Coates documents impressively how housing segregation is the result of government regulations of the home mortgage market and the work of white real estate speculators. White home buyers cooperate, for instance, by buying repossessed houses cheap in this process of segregating where people live by race. Lanie Guinier offers example after example of municipalities, counties and states manipulating the rules governing elections so as to make quite sure that black voters will never elect a black representative. Amy Goffman and  Michelle Alexander demonstrate how the criminal justice system is set up to catch and absorb young black men, often when they are barely in their teens.  But whites keep denying their complicity. What else do lawsuits over affirmative action say but "the second-class status of African-Americans is not my responsibility. I have nothing to do with that." 

But we should know better.

To confront that consistent denial, Coates asks for reparations. By that he does not primarily mean that someone, most likely the government, should pay money to African-Americans, or support them in buying houses, or help them get a college education, or in other ways distribute money to them they have not earned by working. Instead the demand for reparations is intended primarily as an opportunity for all Americans to reconsider the history of African-Americans on this continent from their first arrival in 1609 to today. Asking for reparations is asking for white people to consider seriously whether they are in fact as innocent as they claim to be of the second-rate status of African-Americans.

Next year, on 4 July, we could perhaps dedicate the day to considering seriously whether white people, who deny that the condition of African-Americans has anything to do with them, are speaking the truth or are not rather implicitly admitting their guilt by protesting their innocence too much.

It is high time that we reconsider what it means to be generally dedicated to equality and what we need to do if we are to take equality really seriously.

The War on Women

I recently visited one of the Middle schools in town. I discovered that the school day still begins with a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance ” . . . with Liberty and Justice for All.” But that is political propaganda. For half the students, the girls, the prospect for liberty and justice is pretty dim. Not only is their liberty seriously restricted by the epidemic of rapes, of other sexual assaults and harassment, but their hope for justice is dim as long as our legislators are unwilling to stand up for them.

This thought is prompted by a random collection of news stories in the last few weeks.

● The Army is investigating sexual abuse allegations against an officer who trains military prosecutors who handle sexual and physical abuse cases, a defense official said Thursday.

● Once a rising star among the US army’s top battle commanders, Brigadier General Jeffrey A Sinclair is now fighting sexual assault charges that could land him life in a military prison if convicted. The general who faced serious prison time was let off with plea deal.

● Pentagon officials announced in May that sexual assault incidents have increased by 35 percent between 2010 and 2012, bringing the annual total to 26,000 cases of some type of unwanted sexual contact or sexual assault last year. The results came via an anonymous survey.

● Active-duty female personnel make up roughly 14.5 percent -- or 207,308 members -- of the more than 1.4 million Armed Forces, according to the Department of Defense. One in three military women has been sexually assaulted, compared to one in six civilian women, according to Defense. According to calculations by The Huffington Post, a servicewoman was nearly 180 times more likely to have become a victim of military sexual assault (MSA) in the past year than to have died while deployed during the last 11 years of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

● Lt. Col. James Wilkerson, a pilot who was also the inspector general of the 31^stFighter Wing at Aviano Air Base in Italy, was found guilty of aggravated sexual assault and sentenced to one year in military prison in November. His charges included “abusive sexual contact, aggravated sexual assault and three instances of conduct unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman,” the Air Force Times reported.

But last month, Lt. Gen. Craig A. Franklin, commander of the Third Air Force base, dismissed the sexual assault conviction – even though there was plenty of evidence of the defendant’s guilt. On Feb. 26, the case was dismissed and Franklin even recommended Wilkerson for a promotion, the New York Times reported.

Nor is this an exclusively North-American phenomenon.

Violence against women is "an extensive human rights abuse" across Europe with one in three women reporting some form of physical or sexual abuse since the age of 15 and 8% suffering abuse in the last 12 months, according to the largest survey of its kind on the issue.

Horrifying gang-rapes in India have been in the news repeatedly in recent months.

Not only is women's freedom seriously restricted by the ubiquitous threat of sexual assault, but their hope of receiving justice is dim. Existing legislatures are unwilling to see that justice be accessible to all, even women.

The case of Lt.-Col. Wilkerson whose conviction of sexual assault was overturned by his commanding officer, prompted legislation in Congress to exclude commanding officers from getting involved in sexual assault complaints. That piece of legislation, intended to provide a bit of justice for women victimized, recently failed to pass the US Senate.

The Texas legislature adopted new restrictions on abortions. There were 44 facilities that performed abortions in Texas in 2011, abortion providers said. There are now 24, they said. When the law is fully implemented in September, that number is expected to drop to six.

While it is customary to praise the heterosexual family as the cornerstone of our society, the prevalence of violence in families is being overlooked.

• In 2008 females age 12 or older experienced about 552,000 nonfatal violent victimizations (rape/sexual assault, robbery, or aggravated or simple assault) by an intimate partner (a current or former spouse, boyfriend or girlfriend).

• In the same year, men experienced 101,000 nonfatal violent victimizations by an intimate partner.

• The rate of intimate partner victimizations for female s was 4.3 victimizations per 1,000 females age 12 or older. The equivalent rate of intimate partner violence against males was 0.8 victimizations per 1,000 males age 12 or older.

            Is it not time to get serious about liberty and justice for all?

Does your Member of Congress represent you?

 

The English began experimenting in earnest with democracy during the 17^th century, a time of civil war and of great upheaval in politics and in religion. Towards the end of that momentous century, John Locke wrote a book about democracy as Englishmen understood it at the time. He advocated a representative system. Some of what he said is still of very important.

  Locke observes that we can trust our representatives to legislate in our interests if they are going to be subject to the rules they make for us. An elected official represents me when the rules he makes for me also apply to her. If the representative's interests are the same as those of the voters and if the burdens the voters bear will also have to be borne by the representative, we can trust them to do in our stead what we would do ourselves, if it  were up to us to make laws.

That observation gives us a clear standard by which we can judge whether the person we elected represents us or is, instead, on his own parade and in pursuit of his private interests. Does your representative assume the burdens he imposes on you?

We have a clear answer to those questions and the answer is negative. Congress imposes burdens on us they do not impose on themselves.

Let's look at healthcare. Members of Congress, like the majority of all federal employees, may elect to enroll in the federal health care plan. They are entitled to continue under this health care plan after retirement – unlike most other employees in the United States. Once most of us retire, we lose health insurance. Federal employees tend to pay slightly more for their health insurance than employees in the private sector. However “approximately 3/4 of all workers in private industry had no choice in medical insurance plan, either because they were not offered a plan (30%) or because they were offered only one plan (44%) while many participants of the federal health insurance had a wide choice of different plans.”

Members of Congress have health insurance. Almost a third of their constituents do not. In the near future some of us may well lose our current health insurance, or lose benefits, or have to pay higher premiums. There are no prospects for such changes to the insurance of members of Congress.

When it comes to pensions, “Members of Congress are not eligible for a pension until they reach the age of 50, but only if they've completed 20 years of service. Members are eligible at any age after completing 25 years of service or after they reach the age of 62." Please also note that Members of Congress have to serve at least 5 years to even receive a pension. How many persons do you know who can work for 20 years and then retire at 50?

The amount of a congressperson's pension depends on the years of service and the average of the highest 3 years of his or her salary. By law, the starting amount of a Member's retirement annuity may not exceed 80% of his or her final salary.

According to the Congressional Research Service, "413 retired Members of Congress were receiving federal pensions based fully or in part on their congressional service as of Oct. 1, 2006. Of this number, 290 …were receiving an average annual pension of $60,972. A total of 123 Members who had retired received…an annual pension of $35,952 in 2006."

Not all Americans who work all their lives receive a pension at retirement or one that is as generous as those given to Congress persons.

Members of Congress do not get lavish benefits. But their benefits are better than that of many of their constituents. More seriously, they assure benefits for themselves while many of their constituents don't receive any.

They are not good representatives of the people that vote them into office.We should insist that when Congress cuts benefits to citizens, they also cut benefits for themselves. They should not vote themselves benefits that their fellow citizens do not have.