Hate Crimes

I had a conversation with my roommate yesterday about hate crime legislation. I may not be a good liberal by saying this, but I think hate crime legislation is ultimately unnecessary, as it's currently written. Problem is that, not from a lack of trying, I had a hard time articulating my reasons why, at first. I've been thinking about my reasoning off and on since our conversation- so much so that I commented on a message board about my ideas so I could practice writing them for my blog post.

The original blog post (here) talked about Obama/Biden wanting to beef up existing hate crime laws and how it was redundant and that ultimately it was meaningless.

Many people who are against hate crime legislation are Rush Limbaugh style social conservatives who use arguments of fairness to mask their barely hidden prejudices. I don't think that having hate crime laws on the books will somehow exacerbate differences between protected groups, as many "conservatives" argue. I also understand the reasoning behind hate crime laws in the first place, most notably, it gave the Federal government an out for prosecuting crimes against minorities that otherwise would have gone unpunished. Society does have a stake in upholding certain values, and it's entirely possible that the ends justify the means.

Nevertheless, hate crime legislation still sits very uneasily with me. My response to the original post shows why:

In the original post, I think there's a mix-up between motive and intent. It's not a waste of time to look for intent- it's the basis by which we categorize crimes. The difference between murder and manslaughter is one of intent.

What the government should not waste it's time legislating and what I think the original post was trying to get at is motive. Our basic criminal laws do not and should not differentiate between motives if we are to live in a society governed by the rule of law. We'd then have to have all sorts of sentencing guidelines. It may seem like parsing words, but it's actually very important. Intent has the higher burden of proof then motive, simply because motive does not have to proven beyond a reasonable doubt in order to get a conviction, intent does.

Now, I understand that society has a vested interest in not having a particular community terrorized. So I propose that if the prosecution has enough evidence to prove that a white person killed a black person with the intent to terrorize the black community they should charge them with the separate crime of terrorism as well as the crime of murder. The fact that they killed someone because of their race should bear no more on the charge than the fact that they killed someone because they had red shoes. The fact that they killed with the intention of terrorizing a community should. But it's something that the prosecution has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt before a harsher sentence should be handed out.

Hate crime legislation as currently written, while well intentioned, comes too close to policing thoughts, in my opinion. I think we should err on the side of caution when it comes to things like this.
Now a jury may hand out a lighter or harsher sentence because of motive and that's okay. But different sentences because of motive should not be codified in our laws.

One of the arguments I made in the post addresses my roommates most persuasive argument during our conversation. He said that hate crimes were really two crimes in one and as such deserve a harsher sentence. If that's truly the case, and I accept arguments that they are, then we should charge them with two crimes concurrently. It's more than an issue of semantics, charging them with one crime, the murder as a hate crime, gives the jury very little wiggle room. If they believe that the defendant committed murder then they necessarily have to convict them of a hate crime, even though the prosecution. Charging them with a separate crime would allow the jury to vote not guilty on the issue of intent on the hate crime, while still giving a guitly verdict for the murder.

In practice, what's most important is keeping the burden of proof high enough where only those cases where the prosecution can reasonably prove that the crimes were motivated by the victims membership in a protected group. Overall though, I think we should shift the onus from proving motivation to proving intent.

A Place to Call Home

(from 1/13/09)
First, an update. I bought a ticket and went to Prince Joe's funeral. I got a chance to meet his family, and I was given the opportunity to speak in front of everyone- to say how Joe affected my life and how I'd gotten to know him. I'll always be grateful for that opportunity.

The funeral was on a Thursday, but I used a couple of sick days to spend the rest of the weekend in St. Louis. Being back there showed me how much I really missed the city. Don't get me wrong, I love living in New York, I've had a wonderful time and I know that looking back I will always appreciate being able to live in the biggest city in our country. Riding the subway, eating at the carts, people everywhere, going to see the symphony in Central Park during the late summer. It's so exciting being young in New York, even if it's just for a little while. Even if it's just so I could say I did it.

But there's something to be said for having a place you call home, and as much as I'd like to, I don't think I'll ever develop that feeling about New York. When I was just a young high school student in Milwaukee, me and my brother would always get paper copies of the Onion. There was this one comic strip that we'd always laugh at, I forget the name, the sole purpose of it being to highlight pathetic losers at their absolute lowest moments. In one particular edition, this teenager was up late at night watching syndicated shows when the theme song for Cheers came on. Without any warning, he started crying because he "really wanted to go someplace where everbody knew his name." At the time, me and my brother laughed hysterically over someone who would cry over a popular TV theme song. But, all snarkiness aside, it's kind of how I feel when I go back to St. Louis.

For instance, that Friday night I went to this art gallery/hip-hop event that was put on by some of my people. Along with being a hip-hop artist and DJ, they respectively did fashion design and drawing/sketching/painting, and were both really good. In addition, there was plenty of free Schlafly beer (yeah St. Louis beer) and Vitamin Water. But more to the point of this story, I saw dozens of people that I knew. I had brought one of my friends along, but I was constantly bumping in to one person I'd known from doing anti-death penalty lobbying in Jefferson City, or someone I planned a concert with while working at the radio station. Looking back on it, I got a chance to do a lot of things during my time there. Now that I'm working, it's hard to imagine being involved as heavily, or really at all. I'm trying my hand at some volunteering, but it's not the same and on the weekends I just want to stay at home and read or rest. Part of it no doubt is the sheer energy it takes to truly get to know a place like New York. For a naturally curious person, getting to know St. Louis is pretty easy and once you're in with people, whether its the music scene, politics, volunteering, whatever, you're in there for life and you get to know everyone else in that life pretty quickly.
It was nice to talk about old times, catch up on who is getting married or having babies. It was also pretty cool telling people how life was going for me in New York. Most of my acquaintances told me how lucky I was to be in New York, and more to the point, out of St. Louis. It's an easy sentiment to understand. New York is one of the top three cities in the world (with London and Tokyo) by almost anyones metric, and St. Louis is a decrepit, mid-sized, former industrial city smack dab in the Rustbelt Midwest. But, I moved around all of my life, never really had a place to call home, it was pretty exciting to actually start to build a life somewhere. I had my favorite bar, knew where most things were happening at any given time, got to go to fundraisers for the now Governor of Missouri- it was stuff that my parents never did. We moved around too much to ever get settled, losing that continuity means losing friends but also losing all of your ocnnections, that social capital built up by familiarity. It's just makes things a lot easier to navigate your way through situations, or to build up a potential career when those relationships are still intact. St. Louis is small enough where building those relationships is a possibility for a young kid who just moved there, but large enough for them to be rewarding with hard work. I'm not sure if I'll eventually make my way back there; life's got too many possibilities at this age to know for certain. I really wouldn't mind it though, if that's how it's gonna be.

Honest Graft

So for what seems like forever, I've been reading a book about William Marcy "Boss" Tweed, the infamous ringleader of Tammany Hall at its most corrupt. The book is a biography of Tweed, the only one I could really find that doesn't deal with his life on the periphery. For the most part, Tammany Hall and New York City from the late antebellum period to Reconstruction are the subjects covered in books that are nominally about the Boss. Tweed makes his appearances, but it's usually after his rise and brief stay at the top of Tammany Hall and long after his term in the House (I didn't even know he served a term until I started reading the book). And they always, always present the same image, the Thomas Nast's portrait of Tweed the "Tiger of Tammany." Not to be an apologist or anything, but things always worked as they had for Tweed, and continue to do so up until today. Going after a powerful public official for graft and/or pay-to-play is like going after a CEO for insider trading, or an NBA two guard for traveling. You have to limit yourself to prosecuting the (seemingly) most egregious violations, because everyone takes that extra step. And many times it's not just about the degree of the infraction, but whether or not the person will make headlines or has enough friends in high places, or has a bunch of all-star appearances.
For instance, do you honestly think that what Blagojovich did in Illinois is that uncommon. The governors ability to appoint a senator is something very powerful- of course the person in charge will use it to their own advantage. There are several reasons that Blago is in the trouble that he is- he has ALOT of enemies, particularly the mob connected mayor of Chicago, he was selling off the most high-profile Senate seat in the country, and he was imbecilic enough to talk about it blatantly on the phone even though he knew he was under investigation. If this wasn't the case; well he'd probably still My point when it comes to Tweed and public finance is this- when it comes to public projects, money always disappears, timely political donations will always get your company the job, no-bid or shoddy bid contracts are the rule, not the exception. The feds are currently investigating
For more on that, look at the saga of Bill Richardson. It's full of all this kind of stuff- bid-rigging, donations to re-election campaigns and political action committees, overcharging, the works.

One thing that I've learned from my short time doing public finance research is just how opaque the entire industry is. The oversight levels are paltry compared to the corporate world, there is little disclosure on fees, and the relationships between parties are much closer than arms length. One of the reasons I am interested in public finance is the intersection between government and business, but without any oversight or disclosure, that relationship becomes toxic. What would be great is meaningful oversight- requirements for competitive bids. Pay-to-play, unless it's captured on a wiretap is tough to prove, particularly because while the underwriter on bond deals are forbidden from making political donations, derivative advisors are not barred from making donations. It's all so hard to unwind

And it kind of scares me. I have to admit that I am utterly fascinated by corruption, from the municipal corruption I just highlighted to organized crime to pay-to-play politics, and pretty much everything in between. I love reading about the intertwining of legal and illegal activities, how they all feed each other to make one cancerous sore on the body we call civilization. I guess that's one of the reasons that I loved The Wire so much, because it was a mostly realistic portrayal about how all of those pieces, law enforcement, real estate developers, the unions, the government, drug dealers, unintentionally worked in concert to enhance and force adaptations from the other institutions(not to mention destroy our collective moral fabric). At first glance, my introspection tells me that it's because of my inner cynicism that I am attracted to corruption. But most people who know me would say that I'm not overly cynical, if I had to describe myself I'd say that I was an idealistic realist. Realistic in the sense that you have to know what's going on, adapt and react to the world according to the way it is, not to the way you want it to be. Idealistic because, once you start looking at the world in a realistic manner, actual solutions can be created. Ultimately, the problems that our society has in our institutions (which are big only in some contexts) can be solved, we just need the collective will.

But is there any case where the means (corruption and graft) are justified by the ends? I'm not the first to notice that a lot of public works (including the Brooklyn Bridge, Central Park, the Met) were completed under the Tammany Hall system of "honest graft." Of course, the politicians and the rich got richer on these deals (mostly through buying up the land after they heard it was going to be used for some development). But really, the rich always get richer anyway. Most of the deals being investigated by the Feds on these muni bond deals were for bridges, roads, and hospitals- things done for the legitimate public good. And greasing wheels, whether it's in Tweed antebellum New York or Bill Richardson's modern day New Mexico, has always been used to get things done. We don't have a control really, to see if public works could be done without all of the corrupt practices (at least on a large scale). But people will always act in self-interested ways, try and work their way around the regulations we set in place. If the grease stops one day, will the wheel suddenly stop turning, or just turn much more slowly?

I guess this goes to George Washington Plunkitt's concept of honest graft. If he'd said something like this today he'd be indicted on principle. Today of course, it can't be as outlandish as Plunkitt's examples (although Halliburton's notorious no-bid contracts definitely say otherwise). But it begs the question of whether or not some kind of centralized corruption is, if not necessary, then a minor evil. Then again, Plunkitt was all about machine politics, patronage, and hated civil service reform (a topic for another day). Needless to say, he was one hell of a character. The man saw his opportunities and he took them.

WRITERS BLOCK!!!!!!

Distant Lover

Artist- Marvin Gaye
Song- Distant Lover
Album- Let's Get It On



Distant lover, lover
So many miles away
Heaven knows that I long for you
Every night, every night
I plan, sometimes I dance
Through the day
Distant lover
You should think about me
And say a prayer for me
Please, please baby
Think about me sometimes
Think about me here
Here in misery
Misery
As I reminisce, oh baby, through our joyful summer together
The promises we made
All the daily letters
Then, all of the sudden
Everything seemed to explode
Now, I gaze out my window
Sugar, down a lonesome road
Distant lover
Sugar, how can you treat my heart
So mean and cruel
Sugar, sugar
Treat every moment that I spent with you
I treasure like it was a precious jewel
Please, Lord have mercy
Please, come back, baby
Somethin' I wanna say
When you left
You took all of me with you
Do you wanna hear me scream
Come back and hold me, girl


I've listened to this song many times in my life. For the last few months though it's been on repeat, if not on my iPod then definitely in my mind. Marvin at his best is always affecting in his phrasing and anguish, and on this song he's masterful. It has more of the mid 70's Philly soul vibe, heavily orchestrated, plenty of sweeping strings and horns, bassline at the forefront, percussive guitar. And Marvin vocals just float over all of it, like a falcon's wings cutting through wind currents. Yeah, it's like that.

One of my coworkers at the record store I use to work at was a big fan of Jeff Buckley, and upon finding out that I thought he was just okay, responded "You'll start to like Jeff Buckley as soon as you experience real pain in your life."
At the time, I thought it was something rather presumptuous to say, how did he know I hadn't experienced pain in my life? More importantly, I didn't think my inability to empathize was the reason I did not think Grace was one of the 100 greatest albums of all time.

But now I understand what he meant. You certainly don't have to go through the exact situation the artist is singing about in order to understand the song or have an appreciation for it. But your relationship with the song changes as the situation morphs from unimaginable, to something theoretical, to something that you've actively experienced. At that point, it's like the singer gets you perfectly and the song becomes a flawless representation of that moment.

And it started out as unimaginable. I'd never do something like that again, I tried it once and it didn't work out. But it was a juvenile relationship really, looking back, I'm pretty sure it didn't count. And then it became theoretical. After it's been going on for awhile, after you've let your guard down, it becomes a possibility. And as the both of you go down that road together, the dangers are known and openly discussed. You don't have anything to lose discussing the possibilities though, it's all for practice, for pretend, you're playing soldier safely inside the fort. And it stayed, for a long time at the theoretical level. No matter how much you contemplate it you're never completely prepared. Now, every night it's real, sometimes it's a little too real- and the only recourse is the equivalent of hugging a phone. Even now I'm still trying to get my sea legs so to speak, it's a process that even seasoned pros have to play by ear, or so I'm told. And it's about learning what I can and cannot handle and always being as honest as possible.

It's more than a little cheesy, playing "Distant Lover" over and over again when you're in a long distance relationship. Even if it is a form of therapy. It helps that the singer is an all time great; when I play it, I can legitimately say that it's one of my favorite songs. And Marvin's so damn smooth with it, like I said, combining vulnerability and masculinity is no easy task but he did it effortlessly in song form. In the actual world, I try and fail too often at it- coming off either as a softie or as a colossal jerk. But really it's that one part, at the beginning, the part that Kanye West samples on "Spaceship." It's when he says "heaven knows that I long for you" and he goes up a little bit higher. Then he tops it off- "every night... every night." I could loop that back over and over again; it's a good approximation for how I feel at times. I get it now, I'll call it the Jeff Buckley Corollary. And I think I'll take another listen to Grace.

He Truly Was A Prince (Finding Buck O'Neil Pt. 2)

This started out as a post describing how I met "my Buck O'Neil," so to speak. A man named Joe Henry. A former Negro League baseball player who lived in Brooklyn, on the Illinois side of the Mississippi. They called him Prince back in his playing days with the Memphis Red Sox, Indianapolis Clowns (the same Negro League team Hank Aaron played for), Detroit Stars, Detroit Clowns, and Goose Tatum's All-Stars.

Prince Joe passed away last Friday, he was 78 years old. I started this post way back in December, and I'd been meaning to call Joe for sometime. It's been far too long since we talked- something always came up, looking back it was usually something trivial. Not too long ago I was sitting at work with nothing much to do. I pulled out my phone, scrolled down to his name, and pressed the call button. But no one answered. But I didn't try again, and that's something I'll always regret. I'd stayed close to his grandson while I was in St. Louis, we talked at least two or three times a month. His grandson had taken it upon himself to be his full-time representative, and he was good at it, garnering for Joe the recognition that he deserved such a long time ago. His Riverfront Times Column "Ask a Negro Leaguer" was a must read every week. And during the MLB Draft this year, he was ceremoniously "drafted" by the St. Louis Cardinals. And yes, he finally did get his baseball pension.

I can't say that I knew him as well as I'd like to pretend I did. In the three years after the event, we probably talked 5 or 6 times, and the last time was no later than early 2007. I got close to his grandson though, and I followed his path to recognition through our conversations. Joe was no saint- he was, at times, a bit vulgar (even though I never heard him curse), and sometimes he was so enamored with his own intelligence that he'd completely crowd someone out of a conversation. He could ramble on with the best of them. But mostly he was man full of pride and full of stories, a man who was proud to be from Brooklyn, Illinois, proud to be from the wrong side of the river. And he thought kindly of me, told me that I was intelligent, a remarkable young man- which is something I will never forget. So thank you Joe! Thank you for believing in me, thanks for agreeing to talk, to enter my life and to help me pull off my first event as a member of Washington University's Association of Black Students Exec Board. You were a man against organized religion, but knew your Bible backwards and forwards. I don't know if there is a heaven, but it sure would be a fun place if you're there. This post, this long meandering post is my dedication to you. In all of its rambling glory! Enjoy the peace and rest my friend, because you've earned it!
______________________________________________________
(original start date 12/16/08)

The truth is that I have my own Buck O'Neil. I met him my sophomore year of college. I was the history chair for the Association of Black Students at my school and I wanted to do something memorable for the Black Arts and Sciences Festival (BASF) Week. If you read this blog (all three of you), then you will know that I love baseball. The thought of combining history, baseball, and Black people was too good of an opportunity to pass up. I started contacting people at the Negro League Baseball Museum in Kansas City, wondering if they could do a display and Q&A session on the history of the Negro Leagues, document some of the stars (Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson) and really just give people an idea about something that is either forgotten or cariactured far too often in our national discussion. I wanted it to be a celebration as well, because too often when we study Black history, because of the tragedy and heartache involved, everyone always gets bummed out. It usually goes something like this-
BC-1600: NOTHING!
1600-1863: SLAVERY!
1863-1865: GOOD LORD LINCOLN FREED US!
1866-1877: IGNORANT COONS TAKE OVER SOUTH (AKA Reconstruction)
1878-1954: SHIT WAS BAD! I MEAN REAL BAD! (except for small break for Harlem Renaissance)
1954: BROWN VS. BOARD
1955-1968: CIVIL RIGHTS!!! MARTIN LUTHER KING!!!!! (Rosa Parks, Malcolm X and a bunch of other people too, but mostly MARTIN LUTHER KING!!!!!)
1969-Present: NIGGAS BEEN FUCKIN UP EVER SINCE!

Well, what I'm trying to say is that I wanted to study something that occured in the period before the "modern" Civil Rights movement, something during that, "Shit was Bad" period. Because yeah, it was bad, but there was beauty and joy within that period as well, and Negro League Baseball, the largest Black business, was one of those things that brought joy to people.

There was one little problem though, we didn't have a lot of money. The man who I talked to was great. He was pleasant, knowledgeable, timely in his responses, and willing to come all the way across the state to St. Louis to give the talk. And although the museum curator racket is not quite as lucrative as Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme, the man still needed to get paid. When I added everything together, the honorarium, the travel, the hotel stay, the total was far more than we could pony up. I called to tell him the bad news (for us at least). After weeks of going back and forth, planning how the program was going to go, I felt like I'd wasted the man's time, and there's nothing I hate more than wasting someones time, particularly someone who had been so kind to me. He told me he understood, I mean the man works for a history museum, he knows what it's like for an institution to not have any money. He then pointed me in the direction of a Negro League ballplayer who lived in the area who was willing to do speaking engagements, the man's name was Joe Henry. He lived across the bridge in Brooklyn, Illinois, and he was clear to make that distinction. To me, everything over the bridge was just East St. Louis, but I guess nobody wants to live with the connotation of what it means to be from East St. Louis hanging over ones neck. He gave me his number and told me to give him a call soon so everything could be arranged.

I gave him a call a few days after I got his number. He sounded tired and a little annoyed when he first answered the phone- I started to think twice about inviting him. But after I explained to him what we would be doing and that we would be willing to pay him a $500 honorarium, he suddenly became all ears. That first time we mostly talked about his days playing baseball with the Memphis Red Sox, when he was a serious prospect, and the injury he suffered on a double play which made it painful to throw and could have ended his career (he was playing a Philadelphia Phillies farm team). But then came his days with the Clowns and Goose Tatum, and his trademark tuxedo and top hat. He spoke fondly of those days, because at the end of the day, baseball, like all spectator sports, is about entertainment (something I think people running the game forget from time to time). At the end of the conversation, he accepted my offer and told me to set everything up with his grandson.

We talked on a few more occasions- the topics stayed close to baseball for the most part. He'd had a falling out with the game after MLB refused to give him a pension. MLB gave pensions to Negro Leaguers who had not played in the Major Leagues only if they played during a certain date- a little while after Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby broke the color line. Joe's argument at the time, and I thought it was a good one, was that even though the color line was broken, for a long time only stars were signed and many teams did not integrate until long after Jackie Robinson. The Red Sox did not have a Black player on their team until 1959. Black players who were slightly below average or bench players, had no shot at competing for a job in the bigs, and so were denied long after Robinson had entered the game.

Even though he did not follow baseball like he once did, he still had opinions on some of the players, most notably Barry Bonds. We talked about his chase for the record and the scandal that consumed him. At the end, he invited me over to chat at his house, so we could go over last minute details and so he could show me some of his memorabilia. I agreed.

I took a day off of school that next Tuesday (I believe) to give Mr. Henry a visit. I got into my crappy 1993 Mazda 323 Hatchback and rumbled my way to Highway 64/40. I remember it being a beautiful October day, with a bright beautiful sun peaking through the clouds that dotted the sky. It's weird, I was already 19 at the time and had been in control of when I went to school for more than a year, but I still felt a sense of excitement every time I played hooky, especially when I played hooky for a good reason. My car weaved in and out of traffic on the bridge straddling the Mississippi River, the road gleamed a very bright gray. I took exit to St. Clair, a short round-a-bout that took me under a thoroughly rusted old bridge that trains use to go over. Every time I drive through East St. Louis, it feels like I'm traveling through a dystopian novel. It's like a ghost town; you can hear the wind better there than anyplace I've ever been to. Abandoned buildings and potholes make up most of the scenery, with weeds playing a strong supporting role. Even the trees look sad, the only remaining witnesses from glory days long since passed. Driving through the heart of the town is more of the same. My tires take a severe beating and the buildings are still largely empty, but there's more people outside, cats in hats and tees, posted up on the corner, on sides of buildings, in alleyways, next to semi-luxury cars with 22 inch rims. And darting in between them are people tattered clothes and scabs on some of them, you figure you know who those people are. But mostly, it was just people trying to get through- maneuvering strollers through the patched up sidewalks or running while sloppily putting their Popeye's name tag on their purple Popeye's shirt, they're purple Popeye's hat blocks the sun that always seems to beam just a little more unbearably in this part of town. I sped off, hoping the young man made it to work on time.

My mapquest directions told me I was close, just a few more turns past the titty bars that were as ubiquitous there as Walmart in Nashville. Names like Pink Slip, Soft Touch, Roxy's- I got to know all of them in time. 5 more minutes of going straight and another left turn brought me to a high school. There was a group of kids hanging out in the parking lot- playing Juneau hooky, just chillin out in front of the school but not daring to set foot in there. I got out of my car and reached for my bag in the back. There was a row of about ten or twelve trailers in front of my car. I couldn't see any numbers, so I scanned the row about four or five times before pulling out my phone.
"Who you looking for?" one of the teens asked me.
"Joe Henry," I said sheepishly looking every bit as lost as I was.
"Oh, Mr Henry's over there," he said pointing to the white and blue trailer a little to the right of the trailer I was parked in front of. I slammed the car door before marching through the tall weeds that separated the school from the start of the trailer park. The side screen door was slightly cracked, and I could hear labored footsteps echoing towards the outside. I knocked on the screen door- a little too loudly, the metallic rattle alarming even myself. A shadow of a man gingerly made its way towards the door.

"Mr. Henry! It's Antonio Rodriguez." I exclaimed as the figure made its way down the steps leading to the doorway. He paused for a second.
"Antonio?" he said, with only a slight hint of recognition. Damn, he doesn't remember me, I thought. But then I saw the smile on his face, as if he'd recalled my voice right after he made the statement. He pushed the door open to let me in, and we walked up the stairs past the kitchen into the living room. The floor and table were generously littered with papers and books and stands which held items from Prince Joe's past. There was a red couch on the left side near the window with enough space for the both of us, he offered me a seat after we said our pleasantries, pointing his arthritic hand towards the far right end. He made his way slowly back to the other one, right next to his white mug of water.

And we sat on that tattered red couch and talked for four hours. At first it was just a reprisal of our phone conversations. I described Black Arts and Sciences week as a whole, and then how I wanted our specific event to go. For the most part it was going to be free form- I wanted to give him as much room to operate as possible. The only thing that I'd do was give a brief history of the Negro Leagues complete with an all-time player packet, and then he'd get to talk about his life and hopefully at the end there'd be time for Q&A. He nodded, with that smile on his face, the smile that in one day would become so familiar to me.

"Well, I got some things I want to say and I'm going to say them," he said. I knew what that meant, I'd read a few of the "Ask a Negro Leaguer," columns before. At best, his answer would only be loosely connected to the question he was presented with. Really, it was just an excuse for him to pontificate on whatever was on his mind. I couldn't blame him, no newspaper, not even a liberal free weekly was going to just give an old Black man living in an East St. Louis trailer park his own opinion column where he could talk freely about politics and religion. But if he disguised it as an advice column? So that's how it was going to be with the Q&A too. I appreciated his honesty and told him so. And then we really started talking.

Joe was like a combination of my grandfather and my favorite history professors. He didn't curse like my grandfather, but he could be just as hilarious and even more prescient in his observations. He was most proud of his knowledge of the history of Brooklyn, Illinois. He knew it like he knew the seams on that old red couch. You could see the pride on his face as he recited facts about the businesses and people who use to inhabit his beloved home town; and you could see the hurt (actually it was more like timid anger) on his face as he described Brooklyn's long descent into a land of strip clubs, drugs, crime, and despair.

But then he perked back up and we got back to talking about his memorabilia. Pictures with Hank Aaron and Willie Mays, boards with his fellow Negro Leaguers standing on the foul lines. And a blue board that contained pictures of one of his ultimate scourges- Bingo Long's Traveling All-Stars (starring Billy Dee Williams and James Earl Jones). Oh he hated that movie. How it portrayed Negro League ballplayers as buffoons only concerned with getting a laugh out of the crowd, lacking any kind of professionalism. It was especially insulting to him because he played for Goose Tatum, and he did play third base in a tuxedo with tails and top hat. To many people there's a fine line between being entertaining and acting like a coon- like there's a fine line between entertainment and Soul Plane. Too fine a line for some people, and although I never asked him directly, I bet that it troubled him to think that people saw him that way, as some kind of person who would sell out the dignity of Black people for a quick buck. He just wanted to play ball. I guess it's similar to Buck O'Neil having to play in a grass skirt during the Great Depression. I don't know what I'd do in that situation; I'm just glad I'm not in a situation where I have to choose between doing what I love and sacrificing my dignity to do it.

On the table right next to the couch, Joe had a Bible. He didn't seem like the religious type to me, but he knew his scripture very well. I always get a little uneasy when I talk to people who are very religious, I'm a pretty secular guy and I don't like offending people when I talk about the disagreements I have with organized religion. As it turned out, I had a kindred spirit, at least in one sense. Joe loved the Bible but he had no use for organized religion.
"It would take crack 200 years to do the same amount of damage to the Black community as preachers already have," he said to me. I almost spit out my water laughing. He didn't like the absurd amounts of money churches took in, he didn't like how churches weren preoccupied with building new facilities instead of helping to better the Black community. Joe's favorite book in the Bible was Exodus, and he was constantly relating the deliverance of the Hebrew people from Egypt to anything that he talked about. If organized religion was to truly be worth all of the problems that it caused, then at the very least it would help to deliver people from their earthly problems.

What brought a smile to his face more than anything else was when he talked about young Black children though. Joe would go to elementary schools to speak sometimes, and the unadulterated joy he expressed to me about those moments- well, I've rarely seen someone so happy. He knew that, statistically speaking, that many of them, particularly the ones who lived in Brooklyn and especially the young men, would have a hard time stayng out of prison, a hard time getting out of Brooklyn. But I think he enjoyed reveling in the hope that he had in the gradual progress in the collective fortunes of Black people. He'd seen a lot in his 75 years, he'd seen Black people come a long way. He was old enough to have cognizant thoughts during the Great Depression, old enough to have saved and scrapped during World War II, old enough to have lived through the entirety of the Civil Rights movement, and to have fought in his own way. But most importantly, I think, is that his age brought him a much clearer perspective. It's something that I lack at times, when I despair about the state of our country and the people who run it, the state of the Black community and the people who pretend to care. He'd seen it all; 70 years means that you've seen the big picture from a lot of different angles. Things are getting better, not necessarily in a straight line, there's backsteps and potholes, traps and wrongturns, but things are getting better. Joe loved the Constitution, and, under the circumstances, the "Founding Fathers" too. I think he was in love with the ideas that they generated, the ones we seem to get away from too often. Regardless of whether or not they were hypocritical (and they were) the message of the documents is key, and he believed in trying our best to meet that message as best we could. We ended our conversation with him recounting his days as a union steward- I applauded like a good liberal should. He seemed just as proud of those days as he was playing in the Negro Leagues, which, to me at least, showed just how much he cared about making sure others had opportunities that he himself had been denied.

I left feeling ecstatic about the prospect of Prince Joe talking to my peers. And he didn't disappoint. With his grandson and his wheelchair and the myriad of posters and pictures, he talked to the Association of Black Students at Washington University. Just like we did on that rundown old couch, as personal and as prescient, with vulgarity (one of the best was when he talked about modern ballplayers shittin the ball out of the ballpark) and a vitality that hid the fact that he could barely stand. Like he promised, he came with his own agenda, a blend of the Bible, bitterness, baseball, and those same beautiful stories. Like the time the Washington Senators wanted to sign him to one of their minor league teams. This was pre-Castro, so the Senators still had their team in Havana- but Joe was absolutely petrified of flying (I guess he could have gone by boat but...) so out went his chance of becoming a major league ballplayer. People were flabbergasted at first when he would completely bypass the questions asked- I could see the look in their eyes, the way they mouthed "What?" to each other and tried to stifle laughs. In the end though, he got everybody to listen, everybody to see his reasoning behind it. After the Q&A he stayed to sign posters, for every person who wanted one. Cracking jokes, answering questions, getting around about as well as a 75 year old man in a wheelchair could. A stuck-up woman who came in from Springfield representing something called the Chicago Baseball Museum tried to monopolize his time, but his grandson was pretty cool about letting other people meet him. (I tried unsuccessfully to get an internship out of her, it would have been pretty cool working at a baseball museum). I was so happy that we'd pulled off a successful event, and even happier that we'd gotten together the $500 to pay him a decent honorarium. Thanks to the History Department and Professor Hillel Kieval- and absolutely no thanks to the AFAS Department. *edit* upon further review Joe said that it was $300, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, I mean he was the one getting paid.

After the event was over, Joe told me to stay in touch, and I did, at first. In his next column, he mentioned me, said that I was a remarkable young man. I can't begin to say how touched I felt. When I first got the clipping, I read it over and over again, just to make sure he'd actually said that. I'd call ever few months, just to say hi. The last time I talked to him though, he sounded tired, more tired than he normally did, that enthusiastic rambling replaced by a more ominous tone. I could barely believe it was the same man, and honestly, I could barely stand to hear it. Mostly though I kept in touch through his grandson, increasingly so as I progressed through college, and in time I got to see his grandson as kind of a mentor. I can't remember the last time we had a full conversation, probably not since my junior year of college and I hope I get to sometime. He's been on my mind, because of the book, because of the MLB Draft where the Cardinals ceremoniously picked him, and because I recently talked to Sean. I'm just happy he's lived long enough to get some kind of recognition, however belated, however understated. Thanks for everything Joe. You truly are a prince!

Quick Comment on Gaza Situation

Just real quick. I've been doing a lot of reading about everything that is going on in Gaza. I just wanted to make a quick comment.

Our political establishment is pretty much in lock step on the issue. In this space I'm not going to question whether or not we should be so blantantly one-sided in our affiliations. What I am going to write about are the people who say that we cannot question Israel's actions. They won't say that exactly. They'll usually say something like "Israel has the right to defend itself." That statement is essentially meaningless, something that can be uttered when a politician wants to avoid the question. Of course Israel has the right to defend itself- that's not the question. For arguments sake, let's say that Israel was right in retaliating the way that they did, using their airforce in response to homemade rockets firing into their neighborhoods. That still doesn't mean we don't have the right to question what they did. Last time I checked, the weapons that they use are HEAVILY subsidized by American tax dollars. Israel receives more foreign aid from the US than all other nations combined. That cash should buy the right to question if not criticize when it's warranted. Shoot, in order to get development or anti-HIV aid, African nations have to lie prostrate on the ground while we fuck them with a broken broomstick. And THEN we tell them how they have to spend the money. If there are strings attached to development aid, then there damn well better be string attached to money used to buy weapons.

And it would all be different if our government didn't act like everything that's in Israel interest is also in our interest. I can definitely see the argument where Israels' retaliation served their goals. It's been speculated that Olmert wants to hold off a challenge from Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud party by showing his bonafides as a fighter. But exactly how does this help our own goals in the region? No one ever explains that. Acting like theirs nothing wrong with the enormity of the response that Israel had to Hamas rockets that did not kill anyone does not serve our interests nor our ideals. If my brother shoots a dude that steps on his toe in the club, I am definitely going to criticize him (among other things), but I'll still love him, we'll still be "allies," so to speak. I just don't agree with what he did, it's way out of proportion to the initial act, and just downright dumb. And the US should do the same. It doesn't mean they're allied with Hamas, doesn't mean that Israel doesn't have the right to defend itself, it just means that there are different ways to go about getting results, and what's good for Israel may not necessarily be what's good for us.