had to know they were going right after young blacks. Every
indicator pointed in that direction. Tonry further points out that, in
the law, conscious foreknowledge is evidence of intent of criminal
action.
I think he’s right about that. The so-called “war on drugs” was in
no small measure a criminal attempt to criminalize the black male
population and, more generally, segments of the population that are
sometimes called “disposable people” in our Latin American
dependencies, because they don’t contribute to profit-making.
You’re aware of Farrakhan’s comments on...
I don’t have anything to say about Farrakhan—I’m talking about
the phenomenon. Probably he’s just an opportunist trying to get
power—that’s what leaders usually are. But I don’t know what’s in
his mind, and I don’t presume to judge what he’s up to. I’m too far
out of it.
Christopher Hitchens, who writes for the Nation and Vanity Fair,
recalls that the first time he heard the slogan “the personal is
political,” he felt a deep sense of impending doom. To him, the
slogan sounds escapist and narcissistic, implying that nothing will be
required of you except being able to talk about yourself and your
own oppression. He was talking about the growth of identity
movements.
I agree with him. It certainly opened itself up to that, and it’s
been exploited that way, sometimes in ugly—and often in comical—
ways. But it doesn’t only have that aspect. It can also mean that
people have the right to adopt their individual ways of living if they
want, without oppression or discrimination.
Postmodernism
A respected NYU physics professor, Allen Sokal, got an article
published in Social Text, which has been described as the leading