Ta-Nehisi Coates's Blog, page 65

Western Thought For Class Clowns And Erstwhile Nationalists

Just to explain a bit more about why we'll be grappling with Hobbes, I think some oft-repeated history is order. We had a small row over Augustine a few weeks back. One thing I wanted to emphasize, but did not is that don't think it's ever cool to be ignorant. I dropped out of college. Before that I didn't take college seriously. Before that I didn't take high school seriously. Before that I didn't take middle school seriously. The consequence of those decisions are mixed. The good part is I've cultivated an aesthetic of auto-didacticism. The bad is that there are many gaps in my formal education. Augustine and my relatively late arrival to a foreign language among them.
I was raised in what you might crudely term an Afrocentric intellectual environment. I say "crude" because that wasn't a term that was really used in my house. We didn't celebrate Kwanzaa. We didn't really wear daishikis or speak in Swahili. I knew people who did all of those things, and they certainly influenced me, but that wasn't where we were at. It might nw because my Dad came out of the Panthers, a group that always evinced a skepticism of black nationalism. But the works and history of black people were essential to my upbringing. My Dad was a bibliophile. There were books by black people literally spilling off the wall. What there was not was much Fitzgerald, Augustine, Nietzche, Gramsci, Melville or much of anything out of the "Western" canon.
I don't regret that. It's my particular rooting in the black struggle that has brought me here with you. But I suspect most writers and thinkers begin with a grounding in the general, and then go to the specific. For me, I started with the specificity of the black experience and in conversation, mainly, with people thinking about that experience. Now I find confronting the West and somewhat underprepared. I need more guns.
This occurred to me recently as I reviewed this post on African-Americans and the "social contract." The fact is that I haven't read any significant thinkers on the subject. After the show on Saturday, Chris Hayes was nice enough to set with me and talk social contract, a bit. We joked about how people so often throw the term "social contract" but often don't really know the ends and outs of it. And then Chris suggested the classics--Hobbes, Locke and Rosseau, with a little Scanlon sprinkled in.
So that's it. That's what we're going to do less we slip into "the canting of Schoole-men." Dissertations have been written on this subject so I doubt I'll get the full extent of it. I'm going to basically start with Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau. I might make it to Rawls, I'm not sure. But I'm opening the journey up. I can't go alone.

Mike Tyson's Turn on 'SVU'

Alyssa Rosenberg looks at Law and Order SVU's decision to cast Mike Tyson as a death-row inmate. The casting choice has pissed off a few of the show's fans:

Tyson's paid his debt to society and deserves a chance to work in his chosen profession, which is acting. But it's not as if the man lacks for opportunities. The director James Toback has featured Tyson as himself in his features When Will I Be Loved and Black and White, and he examined Tyson's life in a documentary that premiered at Cannes in 2008. Tyson's been in both Hangover movies, and Spike Lee produced Tyson's one-man show, Undisputed Truth, which got a Broadway run--an exceedingly rare opportunity. I don't really think there's any question that Tyson has gotten a fair shot to pursue work in the entertainment industry, even if we're applying a heightened standard to compensate for the idea that there's employment discrimination against people who have been incarcerated...

As a potentially sympathetic killer, it doesn't sound like Tyson will be bringing local cred or fading into an out-of-the-box role—and the worry is that the character's proximity to Tyson's life story will somehow whitewash his crimes. Without having seen the episode, none of us can really say. But Leight better hope that casting Tyson in this part really does lend life experience to the show and deepen the episode. Otherwise, it's SVU handing over its credibility to someone who still hasn't earned it.

Over at Jezebel, Lindy West fumes:

Now, Tyson completed his sentence and is free to live his life at this point. But that doesn't mean we all have to be complicit in the rehabilitation of his image. That doesn't mean SVU has to hire him. Like I said, SVU's not perfect, but it's something--a small counterpoint to the rape apologia that currently pervades our culture. It at least attempts to unpack tough ideas about shame and victim blaming and the way we protect rapists by stigmatizing sexual violence. Mariska Hargitay runs a foundation to support victims of sexual abuse, for Christ's sake. When I wrote about SVU before, I heard from a lot of victims who say they find SVU therapeutic.

As West and Rosenberg point out, Tyson actually was convicted and did actually serve time. So it's not as if there was no justice. For that reason, I've generally been in the "let him live" crowd. But conviction cuts both ways. It's always disturbed me that some of the people who cast Tyson—or rather James Toback, specifically—have never really grappled with what Tyson was actually convicted of doing. (West outlines the specifics.) That aside, the specific point here is that it is bizarre to cast a convicted rapist in a show where sexual violence is such a persistent theme.

This is about more than "letting Tyson get on with his life." As Alyssa points out, he's gotten on with his life quite well.

Confronting the Monster

One thing that became clear from today was that I can't confront the monster alone. Does anyone want to read (or re-read) Leviathan along with me? If we get enough folks I'll set up a reading schedule. Fair warning for nubs like me. This is not an easy text.

The Assumption of Risk and Pro Football

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A few responses to the Atlantic's timeline on brain injury and the NFL's response:

This is true, but at the same time the athletes are individuals with significant autonomy, and I think they're more cognizant of the risks than most people seem to think they are. Unless a person is totally out of touch with reality, they ultimately bear responsibility for their actions, and I don't think we should minimize them, or claim that they're being thrown to the wind by duplicitous team doctors because we disagree with, when there are numerous instances of the players lying to the coaches to get back into the game. I'm sure some of this is because of how they've been taught, and pressure from their teammates, but I think a large part of it is also that this is the type of personality it takes to succeed in a competitive environment.

Another:

Uhhh...yes it's tackle football, and yes it's still dangerous. Every player who steps onto the field knows that and accepts the risk. Don't like it? Get out.

Another:

On 9/11 343 firefighters died in the twin towers, all males, giving their lives to save others. Males have always been risk takers with a view to providing, protecting and entertaining others. Yes, let's work to make it safer for these amazing men to do what they do--but desist with the attempts to create some sort of utopian fairyland where we live on pixie dust and old Happy Days reruns.

Another:

Take a look at this recent article from Esquire about NFL injuries from the players' perspective. It seems to me that these players are making the same Achillian bargain that young men have been making for eons. They're fully aware of the damage the sport does to their bodies...and they wouldn't have it any other way.

I got the idea to research a timeline on the NFL's response to brain injury after a few encounters on Twitter wherein people insisted that pro athletes were well aware of the risks they'd taken throughout their careers. This is a factual claim based on information that is knowable. But one should never overestimate the power of knowable information.
This Saturday I had the privilege of being on television with Ray Easterling's widow, Mary Ann Easterling. It's worth listening to some of her thoughts on her husband's last days.

Reading Thy Self

A bit of bad-assery from Thomas Hobbes:

Concerning the first, there is a saying much usurped of late, That Wisedome is acquired, not by reading of Books, but of Men. Consequently whereunto, those persons, that for the most part can give no other proof of being wise, take great delight to shew what they think they have read in men, by uncharitable censures of one another behind their backs. 
But there is another saying not of late understood, by which they might learn truly to read one another, if they would take the pains; and that is, Nosce Teipsum, Read Thy Self: which was not meant, as it is now used, to countenance, either the barbarous state of men in power, towards their inferiors; or to encourage men of low degree, to a sawcie behaviour towards their betters; But to teach us, that for the similitude of the thoughts, and Passions of one man, to the thoughts, and Passions of another, whosoever looketh into himselfe, and considereth what he doth, when he does Think, Opine, Reason, Hope, Feare, &c, and upon what grounds; he shall thereby read and know, what are the thoughts, and Passions of all other men, upon the like occasions. 
I say the similitude of Passions, which are the same in all men, Desire, Feare, Hope, &c; not the similitude or The Objects of the Passions, which are the things Desired, Feared, Hoped, &c: for these the constitution individuall, and particular education do so vary, and they are so easie to be kept from our knowledge, that the characters of mans heart, blotted and confounded as they are, with dissembling, lying, counterfeiting, and erroneous doctrines, are legible onely to him that searcheth hearts. And though by mens actions wee do discover their designee sometimes; yet to do it without comparing them with our own, and distinguishing all circumstances, by which the case may come to be altered, is to decypher without a key, and be for the most part deceived, by too much trust, or by too much diffidence; as he that reads, is himselfe a good or evill man.
But let one man read another by his actions never so perfectly, it serves him onely with his acquaintance, which are but few. He that is to govern a whole Nation, must read in himselfe, not this, or that particular man; but Man-kind; which though it be hard to do, harder than to learn any Language, or Science; yet, when I shall have set down my own reading orderly, and perspicuously, the pains left another, will be onely to consider, if he also find not the same in himselfe. For this kind of Doctrine, admitteth no other Demonstration.

If I'm understanding the last part of this section, I actually disagree. I agree with the caution about assuming everything of yourself, applies to everyone else, but I think Hobbes goes to far when he says this method--Read Thy Self--can only be applied to acquaintances.
"Read Thy Self" is the standard method I use to investigate slavery and the Civil War. At some point you tire of yelling about the evils of Nathan Bedford Forrest, and you settle into a much different frame. I believe, as Hobbes lays out here, that I am subject to the same whims as any slaveholder. I don't feel that there is anything in my bones that makes me any more moral. Thus the question becomes not "How awful was Robert E. Lee?" but "How could I have acted as he did?" 
And you work to not ask that question with incredulity, but at the same time without apology  It's "Read Thy Self" not "Construct Some Way To Excuse Thy Self." My favorite historians always manage this trick--explaining exactly how morality is violated, without endorsing the violation of morality. "Reasons" are not "excuses."

The NFL's Response to Brain Trauma: A Brief History

Checking the claim that the league always made sure players "knew the risks"

The casket bearing the body of former Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster in a Pittsburgh funeral home Friday, Sept. 27, 2002. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)

We've spent quite a bit of time discussing the NFL and head trauma. One rather constant claim is that the NFL has always been always been straight about head trauma and that players "knew the risks."  I think it's helpful to weigh that claim against the actual history. Here is one rendition of that history.

1992 - Al Toon suffers his fifth reported concussion in six seasons. Asked if he will retire Toon says, he's "not thinking about retirement right now." 

A week later Toon retires saying, "I feel better sitting still than moving around. I get real tired. Things I normally help with around the house, I can't."

1994 - The NFL establishes the Mild Traumatic Brain Injury committee. Rheumatologist Elliot Pellman is installed as its chair. "Concussions are part of the profession, an occupational risk," rheumatologist  Pellman tells Sports Illustrated. He says that a football player is "like a steelworker who goes up 100 stories, or a soldier."

Pellman continues--"Veterans clear more quickly than rookies...They can unscramble their brains a little faster, maybe because they're not afraid after being dinged. A rookie won't know what's happened to him and will be a little panicky. The veterans almost expect the dings. You have to watch them, though, because vets will try to fool you. They memorize the answers. They'll run off the field staring at the scoreboard."

1995 - The Jets try to improve Boomer Esiason's recovery time from a concussion by employing what the Times calls a "innovative but unproved form of biofeedback therapy." The Jets team physician explains the treatment as  "having a head filled with marbles knocked around after a hit. The biofeedback is trying to put them back in the same order." The Jets team physician admits that they have no controls to show whether the treatment is effective. The Jets team physician is Elliot Pellman.

1997 - The American Academy of Neurology establishes guidelines for concussed athletes returning to play. The guidelines recommend holding athletes who suffer a Grade 3 concussion (loss of consciousness) be taken "withheld from play until asymptomatic for 1 week at rest and with exertion."

2000 - The NFL rejects these guidelines. ''We don't know whether being knocked out briefly is any more dangerous than having amnesia and not being knocked out,'' says neurologist Mark R. Lovell. ''We see people all the time that get knocked out briefly and have no symptoms,'' he added. ''Others get elbowed, go back to the bench and say, 'Where am I?' ''

Lovell is a consultant for NFL and the NHL.

2002 - Hall of Fame Pittsburgh Steeler center Mike Webster dies. Towards the end of his life Webster was living out a pick-up truck, using a Taser to ease back pain, and applying Super Glue to his teeth. 

2003 - In a game against the New York Giants, Kurt Warner suffers a concussion. Confusion ensues over the medical chain of command. Warner's coach, Mike Martz, says that the team doctor cleared Warner to play. The doctor, Bernard T. Garfinkel, agrees. But asked why Warner was allowed to play even though he "had trouble deciphering plays," Garfinkel says, "That's a coaching decision, not a medical decision."

Warner leaves Giant stadium in an ambulance.

"I would say it's not the coach; it's ultimately the physician's decision," says Pellman. "But you can't have a hard and fast protocol, because the injury is all over the place."

2003 - Wayne Chrebet suffers a concussion in a November game against the Giants. The following discussion between Pellman and Chrebet takes place:

"There's going to be some controversy about you going back to play." Elliot Pellman looks Wayne Chrebet in the eye in the fourth quarter of a tight game, Jets vs. Giants on Nov. 2, 2003, at the Meadowlands. 

A knee to the back of the head knocked Chrebet stone-cold unconscious a quarter earlier, and now the Jets' team doctor is putting the wideout through a series of mental tests. Pellman knows Chrebet has suffered a concussion, but the player is performing adequately on standard memory exercises. 

"This is very important for you," the portly physician tells the local hero, as was later reported in the New York Daily News. "This is very important for your career." 

Then he asks, "Are you okay?" 

When Chrebet replies, "I'm fine," Pellman sends him back in.

2004 - In September, former Steelers offensive linemen Justin Strzelczyk leads the police on a high speed chase through central New York, colliding at 90 MPH with a tractor trailer. The trailer explodes, killing Strzelcyzyk instantly. 

Neuropathologist Bennet Omalu later finds evidence of CTE in Strzelczyk's brain. Dr Ronald Hamilton of the University of Pittsburgh confirms Omalu's assessment: "If I didn't know anything about this case and I looked at the slides, I would have asked, 'Was this patient a boxer?'"

2005 - In January, Pellman and MTBI publish their seventh in a series of research papers on concussions, concluding, in part, "Return to play does not involve a significant risk of a second injury either in the same game or during the season."

2005 - In March, the Times reports that Pellman has exaggerated his credentials. 

2005 - In June, former Pittsburgh Steelers guard Terry Long commits suicide by drinking antifreeze. Neuropathologist Bennet Omalu later examines Long's brain and concludes he suffered from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. 

"People with chronic encephalopathy suffer from depression. The major depressive disorder may manifest as suicide attempts. Terry Long committed suicide due to the chronic traumatic encephalopathy due to his long-term play," Dr. Omalu tells the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "The NFL has been in denial."

Steelers neurosurgeon Joseph Maroon says Omalu is employing "fallacious reasoning" saying "I don't think it's plausible at all ... to go back and say that he was depressed from playing in the NFL and that led to his death 14 years later, I think is purely speculative."

2005 - In July the peer-reviewed journal Neurosurgery prints Omalu's autopsy and brain analysis of "Iron" Mike Webster. Omalu concludes that Webster suffered from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy.

2006 - Pellman's MTBI committee releases research concluding that "on-field evaluation by team physicians is effective with regard to the identification of cognitive and memory impairments immediately after an injury." 

The paper also again rejects The American Academy of Neurology's guidelines, concluding that:

...current attempts to link prospective grading of concussion symptoms to arbitrary, rigid management decisions are not consistent with scientific data. We believe that if one insists on grading concussion severity, the best way is retrospectively, on the basis of how long it actually takes the player to become asymptomatic, with normal results on neurological examination. It is the recommendation of the NFL's Committee on Mild Traumatic Brain Injury that team physicians treat their players on a case-by-case basis, using their best clinical judgment and basing their decisions on the most relevant, objective medical data obtained.

2006 - In May,The NFL's MTBI committee attack Bennett Omalu's analysis of Webster claiming it contains "serious flaws." The committee then demands a retraction.

2006 - In November, former Philadelphia Eagles safety Andre Waters shoots himself in the head.  After examining his brain, Omalu diagnoses Waters as having suffered from CTE. Waters was 44 at the time of his death. Omalu says he had the brain of an 85-year old man.

MBTI member and Baltimore Ravens physician Andrew Tucker says, "The picture is not really complete until we have the opportunity to look at the same group of people over time."

2007 - In May, the NFL commissioner establishes a league-wide minimum for "baseline neurological tests" to be mandatory on sidelines. Goodell announces an offseason "concussion summit." "We're protecting the players against the players." 

2007 - An NFL safety pamphlet notifies players, "Current research with professional athletes has not shown that having more than one or two concussions leads to permanent problems if each injury is managed properly."

2009 - NFL spokesman Greg Aiello acknowledges, "It's quite obvious from the medical research that's been done that concussions can lead to long-term problems,"

2009 - The NFL begins to put up posters in locker rooms that state, in part, "Concussions and conditions resulting from repeated brain injury can change your life and your family's life forever." 

"This is about Roger Goodell, that fraud, covering his own ass," says former defensive lineman Dave Pear.

2009 - Goodell testifies in front of a House Judiciary Committee saying, "My approach to this concussion issue in football has been simple and direct - medical considerations must always take priority over competitive considerations." 

2010 - Responding to research from neurologist Ann McKee on CTE, Ira Casson, co-chairman of the MTBI, tells Congress that, "Tau deposition is the predominant pathology in a number of other neurologic diseases that have never been linked to athletics or head trauma. Some of these diseases have genetic causes, some have environmental toxic causes, and others are still of unknown cause."

2010 - In March, the NFL creates a new committee to study concussions, distancing itself from Pellman and Ira Casson. Prominent neurologists Dr. H. Hunt Batjer and Dr. Richard G. Ellenbogen are appointed as co-chairs. Batjer says the following about the MBTI: "We all had issues with some of the methodologies... the inherent conflict of interest... that was not acceptable by any modern standards or not acceptable to us."

2010 - In September, Eagles quarterback Kevin Kolb and linebacker Stewart Bradley suffer concussions. ESPN reports that Kolb "slammed into the turf, his eyes closed for several seconds and he was slow to get up and walk to the sideline," while Bradley, "on all fours, struggled to get up on his own power, stumbled for a few steps and toppled to the ground." 

Both players had concussions. Both were returned to the game.

2010 - In a display of seriousness over player safety, Steelers linebacker James Harrison is fined $75,000 for his hit on Browns receiver Mohamed Massaquoi in an October game. Somewhat undercutting this display, the NFL sells pictures of the hit on its website.

Found in Translation

I use my twitter feed, from time to time, to practice writing in French. I was just going on a rant about how much of French pop is actually in English. I didn't know this until I started listening to RadioNova. I love Radio Nova. It's like listening to a really good American radio station--and that's part of the problem.
But as I was trying to formulate the tweet, something occurred to me about our conversations around the problem of translation. It's not a really good idea to approach a conversation by asking "How do I say this in French?"  A better approach would be to say "How would a French person express this?" or better still, "How would my particular French self express this?
I don't yet have the language mastery to explain the difference except to say that the former method means trying to match French words with English words. The latter method means trying to think about how French-speakers whom you have met express similar notions, or similar forms. 
The best instance that I can think of is as follows. (And forgive me if I've used this before.) The French don't really express the feeling of longing for someone, or something, like we do. If I were gone from New York for too long, I would say "I miss New York." But if a French person were gone from Paris they might say "Paris manque à moi" crudely translated as "Paris is missing to me." Or "Paris me manque," crudely put "Paris I miss." 

You can't really do a "word to word" translation to express the feeling of "missing" in French. You have to put on the Mask, and then ask how would your "character" would express the feeling.  The ability to do this depends on your knowledge of French. The more French you've been exposed to--and I don't merely mean the more vocabulary you know--the more likely you are to find a way to express the notion correctly. In my tutoring class I often say, "En anglais, vite fais," when I need to speak in English. I can't actually translate that phrase. But I know the notion it expresses.
We are not so much learning a second language, as we are creating another self. And that is incredibly exciting. 

Found In Translation

I use my twitter feed, from time to time, to practice writing in French. I was just going on a rant about how much of French pop is actually in English. I didn't know this until I started listening to RadioNova. I love Radio Nova. It's like listening to a really good American radio station--and that's part of the problem.
But as I was trying to formulate the tweet, something occurred to me about our conversations around the problem of translation. It's not a really good idea to approach a conversation by asking "How do I say this in French?"  A better approach would be to say "How would a French person express this?" or better still, "How would my particular French self express this?
I don't yet have the language mastery to explain the difference except to say that the former method means trying to match French words with English words. The latter method means trying to think about how French-speakers whom you have met express similar notions, or similar forms. 
The best instance that I can think of is as follows. (And forgive me if I've used this before.) The French don't really express the feeling of longing for someone, or something, like we do. If I were gone from New York for too long, I would say "I miss New York." But if a French person were gone from Paris they might say "Paris manque à moi" crudely translated as "Paris is missing to me." Or "Paris me manque," crudely put "Paris I miss." 

You can't really do a "word to word" translation to express the feeling of "missing" in French. You have to put on the Mask, and then ask how would your "character" would express the feeling.  The ability to do this depends on your knowledge of French. The more French you've been exposed to--and I don't merely mean the more vocabulary you know--the more likely you are to find a way to express the notion correctly. In my tutoring class I often say, "En anglais, vite fais," when I need to speak in English. I can't actually translate that phrase. But I know the notion it expresses.
We are not so much learning a second language, as we are creating another self. And that is incredibly exciting. 

The Lost Battalion

I'm in the dungeon today guys. For now, it's yours.

The Party of John Calhoun

In Virginia, the legislature is moving to apportion its electoral votes by congressional district, instead of by direct popular vote:

Sen. Charles W. "Bill" Carrico, R-Grayson, said the change is necessary because Virginia's populous, urbanized areas such as the Washington, D.C., suburbs and Hampton Roads can outvote rural regions such as his, rendering their will irrelevant. 
 Last fall, President Barack Obama carried Virginia for the second election in a row, making him the first Democrat since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win Virginia in back-to-back presidential elections. 
For his victories, he received all 13 of the state's electoral votes. Under Carrico's revision, Obama would have received only four Virginia electoral votes last year while Republican Mitt Romney would have received nine. Romney carried conservative rural areas while Obama dominated Virginia's cities and fast-growing suburbs.

One reason the rural areas were "outvoted" is because there were fewer votes in rural areas, and more in urban ones. If the GOP can't convince enough people to win, it will rig the rules so that certain people matter less than others.
Jamelle Bouie calls this exactly what it is:

In addition to disenfranchising voters in dense areas, this would end the principle of "one person, one vote." If Ohio operated under this scheme, for example, Obama would have received just 22 percent of the electoral votes, despite winning 52 percent of the popular vote in the state...
It's also worth noting, again, that this constitutes a massive disenfranchisement of African American and other nonwhite voters, who tend to cluster near urban areas. When you couple this with the move on Monday to redraw the state's electoral maps -- eliminating one state senate district and packing black voters into another, diluting their strength -- it's as if Virginia Republicans are responding to Obama's repeat victory in the state by building an electoral facsimile of Jim Crow.

I'd like to double down on that point. Efforts to disenfranchise black people, have always been most successful when they worked indirectly. After the initial post-war Black Codes were repealed, white supremacists turned to less obvious modes of discrimination -- poll taxes, grandfather clauses, and literacy tests. 
These were cloaked under a colorblind argument -- "We don't discriminate against black people, we discriminate against people who can't read the Constitution." By "read the Constitution," they meant "recite the Bill of Rights by heart." And they'd ask you to do this after reducing your school funding to a pittance. I say this to point that this is not a "new" racism. This is how it scheme went before the civil-rights movement, and this is how the scheme works today. 
To see the only other major political party in the country effectively giving up on convincing voters, and instead embarking on a strategy of disenfranchisement is bad sign for American democracy. There is nothing gleeful in this.