How strategic was Trump's lawyer's choice of the word "haughtiness"?

I'm reading — in The New York Times — "Trump Prosecutor in Georgia Seeks to Avoid Testifying in Colleague’s Divorce Case/Fani T. Willis was subpoenaed in the divorce case of a colleague she hired to manage the Trump prosecution in Georgia, with whom she is accused of having a romantic relationship."

I already think it is a huge problem when someone who wields prosecutorial power — threatening the liberty of private citizens — asserts that she is the real victim here, the victim of racial prejudice, racial prejudice bubbling under the surface.

But look at this:

Black American Sign Language, or BASL... "relies in a unique way on body language and rhythm." The "signing became almost sensual."

"'It was totally different from everyday conversational ASL. It became a lot more emotive... There was a lot more feeling in that.'"

From "How These Sign Language Experts Are Bringing More Diversity to Theater/As productions increasingly include characters and perspectives from a variety of backgrounds, deaf and hearing people who translate the shows for deaf audiences are trying to keep up" (NYT).

"It is already evident that Trump, who can no longer run for reëlection trumpeting economic achievement, will likely pivot and campaign, like George Wallace and Richard Nixon, in 1968..."

"... on 'law and order': his own autocratic, self-serving version of law and order.... He encourages armed protesters in Michigan who stormed the statehouse because the governor had the temerity to shut down non-essential businesses and require people to wear masks in public. He hints, via Twitter, that his maga supporters should come out on the streets. Four years ago, Trump raised fear in the country by portraying a dystopian world of 'American carnage,' even as crime had been declining for years. Division is his talent. Who, really, is the agitator here?... Urban riots, [Martin Luther King, Jr.] said, using the language of the day, 'may be deplored, but . . . they are not insurrections. The rioters are not seeking to seize territory or to attain control of institutions. They are mainly intended to shock the white community. They are a distorted form of social protest.' Even looting, he insisted, is an act of catharsis, a form of 'shocking' the white community 'by abusing property rights.' Then King quoted Victor Hugo to deepen his point: 'If a soul is left in the darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.'"

Writes David Remnick in "An American Uprising/Who, really, is the agitator here?" (The New Yorker).

There's a lot to talk about there, but let me highlight one thing: Why did Remnick specify that MLK was "using the language of the day"? What is that supposed to mean? Anyone speaking is probably "using the language of the day." One might, alternatively, have your own idiosyncratic style of speech or adopt an old-fashioned form of expression or be on the cutting edge of some emerging new way of speaking. If anything, MLK deployed an old-fashioned form of expression: Biblical. But it's strange to qualify the statement you're about to quote by telling readers it was "the language of the day."

I sift through the quote looking for what could have prompted this speed bump on the way to the big quote Remnick wanted to deliver. Is it something about "deplored"? It catches our attention, perhaps, because Hillary Clinton hurt herself badly by calling various people "deplorable," but MLK didn't call people deplorable. He called the riots deplorable ("may be deplored"). Is it "insurrections"? Is it "rioters"? It seems that Remnick wants to defend MLK over something that will strike readers today as wrong, but I don't know what it is.

There's much more that can be said about the MLK quote and how it can apply today. Is the "white community" supposed to absorb the looting as an educational shock to complacent love of our property rights? Note that "white community" and "catharsis" are paraphrasing by Remnick and not part of the "language of the day" used by King. Here's the verbatim quote by King:

“Urban riots are a special form of violence. They are not insurrections. The rioters are not seeking to seize territory or to attain control of institutions. They are mainly intended to shock the white community. They are a distorted form of social protest. The looting which is their principal feature serves many functions. It enables the most enraged and deprived Negro to take hold of consumer goods with the ease the white man does by using his purse. Often the Negro does not even want what he takes; he wants the experience of taking.”

If the verbatim quote had been used, the qualifier "using the language of the day" would have easily been understood as an explanation for King's use of the word "Negro." Perhaps some editor cut up the quote and used paraphrase to protect New Yorker readers King's word "Negro" and then failed to take out the other protection, the qualifier "using the language of the day," stranding that phrase where it did not belong.

"This Is How Trump Convinces His Supporters They’re Not Racist/Trump garners support from both those who would be seduced by flagrantly racist appeals and those who would be offended."

An article in The Nation by Berkeley lawprof (former UW lawprof) Ian Haney-Lopez.

Haney-Lopez may not have written that headline, but I must begin by saying that the word "garner" is perfectly silly. It may be hard for some people to believe, but "get" is a legitimate word and not merely slang. So get smart! (You don't garner smart.) I believe that Jeb Bush might have won the GOP nomination if it were not for his strange need to say "garner" for "get."

See? I'm for clear speech. And the topic under discussion in Haney-Lopez's article is unclear speech — words that racists hear as meaning what cannot be said outright but that can be explained away as not racist at all. Haney-Lopez wrote a book called "Dog Whistle Politics" and thinks Trump's rhetoric is different from the "coded" racism we've seen from other politicians.

The nuanced language of dog whistling traditionally sought to hide the underlying racial manipulation from two audiences: potential critics of such an appeal, including political opponents as well as the media; and the target voters themselves...

Trump seemingly couldn’t care less whether his critics perceive and decry his racial fearmongering. 

Seemingly. We don't know how much, if at all, Trump cares. I appreciate Haney Lopez's professorial precision about what we know and don't know. The old "couldn’t care less" formulation asks us to imagine the least possible caring, in other words, zero care. I'd assume Trump cares at least a little — an apt occasion for the questionable "could care less" — but that he cares more about some other things. Or as we say using The Word of the Week, "sacrifice": Trump sacrifices his interest in protecting himself from being accused of racism in order to serve the higher goal of... of what?!

The 2 answers I can extract from Haney Lopez's column are: 1. To provoke the media into giving him free coverage, and 2. There are a lot of racist voters out there to stimulate.

What I want to say is that Trump doesn't completely sacrifice his interest in being seen as a nonracist. He's just setting the balance in a different place. At one extreme, you have people so afraid of saying something that could be interpreted as racist that they won't speak publicly at all. Among candidates, who must speak, many lean heavily in favor of platitudes of inclusion and steer clear of anything that could be portrayed as racist. Others go ahead with issues — like voter fraud or dependence on welfare — that will set off the racism detectors of people like Haney-Lopez. It's hard for people like Haney-Lopez to believe a candidate would go any further than that, but Trump has, and strong, outraged cries of racism have not turned him back. He just adds his condemnation of "political correctness," takes the hits, and runs with it, to the great puzzlement of onlookers.

It's like the movie monster who can't be stopped by bullets. What are you going to do now?

Clumsy deployment of the dictionary at FiveThirtyEight.

FiveThirtyEight specializes in statistics, not the meaning of words. And most of "The 2,128 Native American Mascots People Aren’t Talking About" is about things they found to count. Obviously, the subject revolves around the Washington Redskins, the mascot people are talking about. But what I want to talk about is this bit about language in the second-to-the-last paragraph:

Given that the name is racist by definition... it probably wouldn’t pass the NCAA’s grounds for appeal....

The link on "racist by definition" goes to the dictionary site merriam-webster.com. Even assuming you can claim to have established what something is "by definition," here's we see in that dictionary:

usually offensive
     :  american indian

Well, that doesn't say "racist," it says "offensive," and if we follow the same "by definition" move and look up "offensive" at merriam-webster.com, we see that "offensive" means "causing someone to feel hurt, angry, or upset : rude or insulting," and "racist" is the adjective for "racism," which means "a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race." That is, "offensive" relates to the effect on others, the pain that is caused, and the reason for the pain is not specified. "Racist," by contrast. refers to the beliefs of a person, so if we're reasoning "by definition" using merriam-webster.com, "redskin" is not "by definition" "racist," since all we know "by definition" is that the word usually causes hurt feelings, not that it embodies a belief in the primacy of race as the determinant of the value of a human individual, which is what, "by definition," "racist" means.

Now, I'm not saying you can't condemn the team name "Redskins" as racist. Go right ahead. Just spare me this half-assed reasoning with the dictionary. If you're going to make arguments based on dictionary definitions, show some skill. That was pathetic FiveThirtyEight! I can't check your statistical work so easily, but you dilute your credibility when you dip into the tlanguage game, at which many of us out here are quite adept.

"The uprooting of invasive 'non-natives' such as the Japanese knotweed is of course not necessarily motivated by racist intent."

"Yet accounts of alien immigrant invasions, weak native hosts bedevilled by larger, more aggressive, rapidly reproducing foreign species, and stable sustainable environments upset and jeopardised by overpopulation, clearly demonstrate a language that is shared in descriptions of human and nonhuman life."

When global economic and environmental crises reveal the fragility of the nation state, I suggest that a defence of British nature – expressed, for example, when the “native” red squirrel is described as being “driven out by the relentless northern march of the greys” – can become the site of displaced nationalist sentiments. 

That's from the sociologist Ben Pitcher, whom we were just talking about a few days ago under the post heading "Is it racist — or uncomfortably racist-like — to express hostility to non-native plants?"

"As someone who grew up with a much stronger sense of my black American roots, and an understanding of African culture distilled primarily through an American sensibility..."

"... I feel as though the term African-American doesn’t quite suit my identity."

That didn’t stop my father from (sort of) jokingly asking, upon my return from Kenya last month, “Did you feel different when you landed in the motherland?” What he meant, of course, was whether I felt as if I’d returned “home” to a place I’d never before been. People have spent their whole lives hoping to find the equivalent of their own personal Zion. Had I?

What's the more masculine response to nasty epithets — having a conversation or calling a 15-yard penalty?

"If someone wants to call me a name I'll have a conversation, with that guy and hopefully it won't happen to someone else."

Said Michael Sam — the openly gay football player, who's participating in the National Football League Scouting Combine — when a reporter asked he what he'd do if a teammate directed an epithet at him.

Meanwhile, the NFL is close to adopting a new rule that would impose a 15-yard penalty for the use of the N-word during a football game.

"I will be totally shocked if the competition committee does not uphold us on what we’re trying to do," [said John Wooten, chairman of the Fritz Pollard Alliance, the influential group that proposed the rule]. "We want this word to be policed from the parking lot to the equipment room to the locker room. Secretaries, PR people, whoever, we want it eliminated completely and want it policed everywhere. I think they’re going to do what needs to be done here... There is too much disrespect in the game."...

"I think there is going to be a higher emphasis placed on it," [said former player Harry Carson, who's now the executive director of the Fritz Pollard Alliance]. "It needs to be put a halt to in the locker room, on the field, whether it’s staff, whether it’s a player, there is no room for it... I don’t think it’s any new rule that we are pushing for because we have been told by the league that the penalty is there. It just has to be assessed if it is used."

That last remark refers to the existing rule against "unsportsmanlike conduct." Carson's point is that there needs to be a new, focused effort, with automatic enforcement on first violation.

I would expect to hear the criticism that the rule unfairly burdens black players, who might claim a different self-expression interest in the use of the word. But you can see why only a clear rule, equally applicable to everyone, will work, and when that rule is adopted everyone in the game will have to stop.

What do you think of free-expression;chilling rules like this within this particular workplace? Do you think the "I'll have a conversation with that guy" approach is better? Is it ironic that the gay guy brings an old-school manly approach to dealing with the problem? Or do you think the flat, automatic harsh penalty — no exceptions, no nuance — is the harder core masculinity?

My law-professorly answer to those questions is...

The verb "opt."

I like it... and used it in the previous post. ("[O]bviously if you have a single-parent household, you'll need some kind of income stream to opt to say at home." I liked the "obv... opt" combo.) But Meade sniffed at this usage. Is it as off as using "impact" as a verb? (Which I don't do.)

The (unlinkable) OED has the earliest usage of "opt" as a verb coming in 1853 — which is relatively recent — and written by Frederick Douglass:

1853   Frederick Douglass Paper (Rochester, N.Y.) (Electronic text) 16 Sept.,   This course will not suit a discriminating public. They must opt for something more than long winded and rapid declamations.

There are 3 other 19th century examples, and both put "opt" in quotes. ("1899... The two boys 'opted'  for the Navy.") By contrast, the word "option" goes back to the 1500s. So I guess it's like "enthuse," which the OED comes right out and calls "an ignorant back-formation" (from "enthusiasm"). But why isn't "opt" called "an ignorant back-formation"? What makes a new usage "ignorant"? Or does it make more sense to say: There's one thing that makes it not ignorant: when the first use appears in the writings of the revered former slave Frederick Douglass.

Rachel Jeantel made it sound like Travon Martin profiled George Zimmerman... or... what is a "creepy ass cracker"?

TalkLeft describes "a train wreck" witness:

She said (on direct exam no less by the prosecutor) that shortly after first spotting Zimmerman, Martin described Zimmerman to her as a "Creepy-a*s Cracker" and later, described Zimmerman a few times as "this ni*ga" (as in this ni*ga following him.) The two minute clip above is of Rachel and the prosecutor repeating creepy a*s cracker over and over as the court reporter struggles to make out what she's saying, Rachel explaining that creepy as* cracker means a white person, then and expressing concern the creepy guy might be a rapist.

So "cracker" is a way of saying white guy, but "ni*ga" is apparently just a way to say guy? I can understand that, but I'd like to ask a few questions — out of curiosity. I'm not saying the defense lawyer should ask this on cross-examination. (Which should make for some interesting TV today.) I'd like to know whether perhaps Trayvon Martin perceived Zimmerman as a person of color and not a white man at all. You assume that there's no way he'd say "cracker" if he didn't see him as white? But he didn't say "cracker." He said "creepy ass cracker." I understand the use of "ass" as an intensifier connected to the adjective "creepy." Creepy-ass cracker, as in very creepy cracker.

But "ass" could go with "cracker" — "ass-cracker." The conversation continued, according to Jeantel: "So... he told me the man was looking at him, so I had to think it might have been a rapist."

Why rapist? A man raping a man? How common is that as a fear? But it was the first thing Jeantel thought to say after he said creepy-ass cracker/creepy ass-cracker. The term "ass cracker" could easily mean a man who rapes a man, especially one who goes after a teenaged boy.

Urban Dictionary has some definitions of "ass cracker" that predate this trial:

1. ass cracker...
One who not knowing the code or combination to a particular slice of ass is nonetheless able to get inside the ass...

2. Ass Cracker...
One who engages in anal sex.
That wanker is an ass cracker.

3. Ass Cracker...
A term used to describe a man with a large enough penis, to brake the anus of the woman or man he is having anal intercourse with.
"Damn, his's cock is so big, he is definatly an ass cracker!"

The word "creepy" makes special sense if you reinterpret the "ass" to go with "cracker." Martin said a man was following him, looking at him. He might have thought Zimmerman was a man out looking for sex and was watching him for that reason. What conversations had Martin had in the past with Jeantel about worries of this kind. She "had to think it might have been a rapist."

TalkLeft says:

She describes how Martin was "right by his father's house" after he lost Zimmerman, and refused to run home. I think he had plenty of time to go home, he obviously chose not to....

Why didn't Martin take Jeantel's advice and run home? The rapist/ass-cracker theory makes sense of Martin's decision to go after Zimmerman. If he saw Zimmerman as a sexual predator, he might think confrontation was a good idea or even an important step: These creeps in the neighborhood need to know that I'm not their prey. It's not enough to run inside daddy's house. My manhood must be established here and now or I can't walk free around here anymore.

"I haven't been a black conservative since 1995..."

Glenn Loury talks about people he's known for 40 years who won't say hello, who won't look him in the eye because he USED TO BE a black conservative. USED TO BE! John McWhorter talks about those who think "it would be wrong to even print my name. They think of me as Satan. And that's just how it's been."



Much later in the diavlog, Loury and McWhorter weigh in on the affirmative action case that's pending in the Supreme Court. "Would you think it was a good thing if the Supreme Court outlawed racial preferences as we knew them?" McWhorter takes the "not nuanced" position that racial preferences should be proclaimed "obsolete." (Loury disagrees.)

I've been thinking a lot today about about the verb "to like."

First, I was struck by the Democratic pollster who said, about Romney, "Ultimately, people don’t like this guy. If they don’t like someone, it’s hard to get people to vote for him — particularly to fire someone they do like."

And then later today, I overheard a professor — I won't say who — telling students they will be meeting representatives of 2 groups, one conservative and one liberal, and that they "would like" the liberals. These particular conservatives, he said, were more effective pursuing their aims — some field of policy that I won't identify — but the liberals, you will like.

Bill Maher to Rush Limbaugh: "You know what, Rush, when you can stand up in front of an audience of 3,000 people all the time like I do..."

I've already blogged about what Bill Maher said on his show last night about Rush Limbaugh, so forgive me if you've already had enough of the Maher-Limbaugh topic, but this really is something else and I have something different to say. Maher said:

The word that they're upset about. I never said on this show.

What is he referring to? He did call Sarah Palin a "dumb twat" on the show. (See?)

It was in my standup act, which I consider the last bastion of free speech. 

The word, apparently, is "cunt," and he used it in his standup show. He tones it down a notch for HBO.

There's a reason people compare me to George Carlin — 'cause we're standup comedians. 

By the way, "twat" wasn't even on  Carlin's original list of "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television." "Cunt" was. Later, Carlin expanded the list, and "twat" got on along with "fart" and "turd." It's like a late year in the history of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, when The Beatles and The Rolling Stones got in long ago, like 2002 and they're getting around to Gene Pitney and Brenda Lee. It's an analogy! I don't owe Brenda an apology. If people are too dumb to handle analogies, why do we even have democracy? Let's just make Obama king, stop talking about politics, and spend our lives dancing and singing.

Did you watch that Carlin clip? Astounding! Maher cites "people" who compare him to George Carlin. He doesn't dare claim the comparison sprang out of his own semi-bald dome. But I'll compare him to Carlin: Bill Maher is not at all as funny or perceptive as George Carlin. Now that's a comparison. What did those other people who compared Maher to Carlin say? I'd like to know, because I'd like to do a comparison comparison. I think mine is better.

Back to this quote from last night that I'm trying to analyze:

Rush Limbaugh likes to say he's a comedian. 

No, he doesn't! Rush's critics like to call him a comedian. When it suits their purposes. Other times they like to say he's the spokesman for the Republican Party. And that's what Rush likes to say. I listen to the show all the time, so I know what he likes to say. Unlike a lot of people who love to hate Rush and simply react to out-of-context quotes they've been fed.

But Rush uses humor. He likes to "use absurdity to illustrate the absurd."

Mayer continues:

You know what, Rush, when you can stand up in front of an audience of 3,000 people all the time like I do and make them spill their fuckin' guts out and laugh their asses off for 90 minutes, you're a comedian. 

Rush doesn't do theater shows — which tend to be scripted with crafted jokes told one after the other — and let's grant Maher that Rush would be bad at that. But Rush does sit down at a microphone 3 hours a day, 5 days a week and hold the attention of not 3,000 people but many millions. For 20 years. Maher could not do that. These are different activities. Both deploy humor as they talk about politics, but they do it in a different way. Maher's bragging that he's doing much more than Rush... it's as off as the implication that he's as good as Carlin.

But you're not a comedian. And when you do that, I say, my rule: You get a little extra leeway. 

Each humorist can decide for himself how much leeway he's going to take. And people will decide whether to give it to him. He can't dictate a rule, except as a joke. You don't get the leeway because you do standup comedy (or a radio show using absurdity to illustrate absurdity). You get what people feel like giving you. And what we feel is a response to what you do. It's a mystery why we feel the way we do. We're not following any rules. It's a personal relationship, like love.

But if I offended women, I'm sorry. I don't have a problem saying I'm sorry. 

Oh, but you do, Bill. Because that is not an apology. It's easy to say "I'm sorry" in the sorry-if-you-are-offended form, i.e., a nonapology.

I don't know why women would want to align themselves with Sarah Palin. I don't know why an insult to her is an insult to all women, but if it is, I'm sorry.

If... and obviously, you don't think it is. The joke — not a terribly good one, not anything that's going to make us spill our "fuckin' guts" out over— is that women shouldn't see Sarah Palin as one of the women who count. If we can isolate her over there with the bad people, we can call her a name that is specific to women: a "cunt." Is the use of a woman-specific insult something that switches the subject to all women? That is, is "cunt" like a racist epithet? If one black person is called the n-word, the topic ceases to be whether that one black person is a bad guy. Or is "cunt" like "dick"? If one guy is called a "dick," we stay on topic: the way that one guy is a "dick." I wrote "cunt," "dick," and "n-word," so you can see what my answer is. I'm for sexual equality... and abandoning the famously hurtful racial epithet.

So let humorists of all kinds select the language they want to use. Let them be gentle or cutting. There are all sorts of things you can do with words. There are no rules. There are no 7 dirty words for TV or extra leeway for extracting puke from 3,000 theater-ticket buyers. There is a mystery to using words to reach other human beings, and you're all on your own.

Taking race into account — simply wrong or rather complex?

Louis Molepske, a Democratic member of the Wisconsin Assembly, questions Roger Clegg, president of Center for Equal Opportunity, which has released a study that supposedly shows that the University of Wisconsin has engaged in serious race discrimination in its admission process for the undergrad program and the law school. Clegg responds. This short clip — shot by Meade, edited by me —  shows that the 2 men are not on the same page about affirmative action.



The colloquy took place at a hearing on October 17, 2011,  before the Assembly Committee on Colleges and Universities.

Molepske utters a classic quote: "We got a lot of white people in Wisconsin."

ADDED: Here's the thing. The University's policies align with the Supreme Court's case law, which permits race discrimination narrowly tailored to serve the goal of classroom diversity. Clegg performs moral clarity: He says race discrimination is "wrong" and "bad." That's something he just knows, quite aside from the CEO's study. He asserts it in answer to any question from someone who thinks there's something more complicated here — that is, someone who would leave it to the University to design and implement its own admissions policy.

That's why the 2 men talk past each other.

"The president didn't have enough backbone. He became too milquetoast... He actually surcame too easily to big business and big banks..."

Surcame?

IN THE COMMENTS: Someone calls this solecism "ebonics," and I say:

No, this is nothing like ebonics. It's the opposite of ebonics, if anything. Cornel West may be black, but his speech is not at all ebonics. It's pretentious straining at erudition, which is why it's so damned funny when he screws up.

I would not put up a post making fun of someone who lapses into an ebonics-type usage. I don't see the value in mocking that. I do see big value in puncturing a puffed-up academic — even though political correctness nags at me to refrain from making fun of the way a black person speaks.

I do have some sympathy for West here, though, because I think PC folk have failed — over a long period of time — to give him the feedback that would have kept him from developing this absurdly inflated style of speech, with its danger of missteps like this, and the self-serious demeanor that makes his mistakes especially funny.

"The Althouse delinquents, unable to grasp more than one thing at a time, are convinced this has solved the question of racist language."

Lean Left thinks you're not getting it.

IN THE COMMENTS: Bissage says:

I managed to get about one-third of the way through.

That’s exactly the kind of sophomoric and prolix crap that tempts a survey course grader to take the stack of bluebooks and simply toss them down the stairs.

Ha ha. Now, I've got to link to Daniel Solove's great old post demonstrating the down-the-stairs method of grading.

AND: Oh, look, Glenn Kenney is reacting to us:

[T]here seems to be some theory afoot that the oft-played-for-laughs deployment of racial epithets in the picture, when considered in tandem with a years-old video of England's Prince Harry, now makes it okay for one to refer to, say, one's Jewish friend as a "kike" to his face....

We've been talking about whether the film may make some people think it's okay, not that it actually makes it okay. (And, Glenn, the character's name is Thao, not Bee. Bee is the actor's first name.)

"Who would have thought it? Prince Harry is just a normal bloke in spite of the weird circumstances of his upbringing."

"Sure, I am all for abominating racism like any other form of odious collectivism... but this hypersensitivity to any politically incorrect use of language is really annoying."

***

I loved the part where Harry's spoofing a phone conversation with the Queen:

"Granny I've got to go, send my love to the Corgis and Grandpa.... I've got to go, got to go, bye. God Save You ... yeah, that's great."

IN THE COMMENTS: Freeman Hunt says:

A royal Kowalski!

Walt Kowalski is the Clint Eastwood character in "Gran Torino," the movie we've been talking about over here. I'd written:

Does the movie legitimatize racial epithets? We have our snarling but lovable geezer spitting a hundred racist slurs — especially to refer to Asians — over the course of the movie. And, in trying to teach his young mentee how to man up — and not be a pussy — he encourages him to banter playfully using words like "wop," "mick," and so forth. You might want to say it's a hilarious slap in the face of political correctness. But I think the movie is pretty effective in selling plain old-fashioned racial talk.

Freeman now says:

I think you're right about Gran Torino making a case for racial language in general. Having the character talk like that to everyone, people he liked and didn't like, people of his own race and not, sort of popped the bubble that these words should have special, almost magical, powers to offend. Especially with the juxtaposition of the racial insults against the real insults. The times you felt he was really cutting were the times when he called young men "pussies" because they deserved it.

Plaxico Burress's "lifetime of pampering may end with 3-1/2 of the hardest years around."

Michael Daly wants to make Burress "a poster boy for doing hard time." Why not just make him an example of famous people getting equal treatment under the law?

Bonus questions:

1. Do you think the expression "poster boy" should be avoided when writing about an African American man?

2. Do you think "[a] Giants football player can be forgiven a certain amount of confusion regarding state lines"?

IN THE COMMENTS: Bissage said...

If Mr. Burress is going to be on a poster, it should be an lolplaxico:

IM IN UR NITEKLUB


SHOOTIN MAI LEGG