Boo! Hiss! to the stinky Supreme Court

I know I'm always permalinking articles from the New York Times, and I'm not even a huge Times fan, compared to The Nation or blogs, but the Times has the advantage of a huge staff and a fuckton of money. For coverage of something as depressing as the Supreme Court's actions yesterday, one can't beat their slew of journalistic attempts to put the SC's back-assward-ness in context.

Here's what I want you to read (or at least skim for juicy/juicily depressing nuggets):

The hard news - the Supreme Court in no uncertain terms gives America five pasty-white middle fingers.

The related study - where are we, decades after Brown? (The answer: not anywhere we'd wanted to be.)

The other side speaks out - what the Brown lawyers think about this mess.

The Times editorial.

The Dark Side speaks out - because, you know, Brown was so long ago, and so much has changed, it's really not fair to say that it has any relevance to today's America.

Juan Williams makes a good point that desegregating kids doesn't help much if their parents are still holed up in class- and race-centric enclaves. If there are white neighborhoods, black neighborhoods, good neighborhoods, bad neighborhoods, won't the kids grow up racist or classist anyway? I for one believe that desegregating kids is a great and necessary first step towards reaching parents. Of course desegregation isn't the only answer, but it is such an obvious attempt at being one answer.

Until we understand each other, we will not respect each other. At least let us help our kids understand one another... Or come up with better legislation, better programs, some positive idea or attempted answer; don't tear down the icon of progress, inter-racial love and understanding, and hope that has propelled us from the pre-Civil Rights movement Dark Ages into at least a partially enlightened future.

In less bad news (actually, in good news, couched in badness by the news surrounding it), the SC did rule that people with severe mental problems who commit crimes should probably not be executed. Seems like common sense, but it took until 2007 to make it the law.

As I have said before, anyone interested in mental health and the vast, bizarre system of vocations, rules, and prisons surrounding it should read R. D. Laing's brilliant The Politics of Experience.

These kids today

Students at Wilton High School create an original play about the war in Iraq for a class, and are kept from performing it by their school principal who seems to have felt it would be too inflammatory.

Three girls at John Jay High School are suspended for saying the word “vagina,” while performing an excerpt of Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues.

And they say kids today are apathetic.

I say, hell no.

We live in a world where the line between child and adult is irrevocably blurred. Twelve year olds can be tried as adults in the criminal court system; eighteen year olds are dying in Iraq and other war-torn countries; fifteen year old girls in Africa are raising their siblings and their own children after losing their parents to AIDS; the former governor of New York suggested that an eighth grade education should be considered sufficient for most (read: working class) Americans.

And young people are stepping up. They are demanding that their voices be heard, demanding that they and their peers be properly cared for and educated, demanding that we pay attention.

If you want to get to know them better, here are some places to start:
Global Action Project
Sista II Sista
We Got Issues
Youth Speaks