Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 79

If You Read Just One More Thing On Ferguson

You could do a lot worse than this Facebook post by Benjamin Watson. If you think we are becoming incapable of nuance and balance in our public debate – and I do – then this piece is a reason to hope.

(Photo: A protester in Ferguson waves a black-and-white modified US flag during a march following the grand jury decision on November 24, 2014. By Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images)

Yglesias Award Nominee II

“What is the point of this bill? Does this bill not in fact play into the hands of those who seek to slander us? Into the very hands of those who wish to show that even among us, there are those who see contradiction between our being a free people in our land, and the freedoms of the non-Jewish communities in our midst? The declaration of independence, in its depth and greatness, bound together two components of the state as Jewish and democratic, democratic and Jewish,” – Israeli president Reuven Rivlin, a Likudnik who has become the country’s conscience in its rush to becoming an apartheid state.

Rape By Fraud?

New Jersey state Assemblyman Troy Singleton is proposing a law that would make it illegal to lie to a prospective sexual partner in order to get them in bed. The bill – which is unlikely to pass – defines “sexual assault by fraud” as “an act of sexual penetration to which a person has given consent because the actor has misrepresented the purpose of the act or has represented he is someone he is not”. Elizabeth Nolan Brown loses it:

No no no just no: we do not need a legal remedy for people having bad judgement. Is it a shame that some people misrepresent themselves to get people to sleep with them? Sure. But not every aspect of social and sexual relationships can be a matter for government concern. What’s next, making it a misdemeanor to use outdated photos on your Tinder profile? Criminalizing push-up bras? Throwing people in jail who say they’ll call the next day but don’t?

The situation Singleton says spawned his proposal involves Mischele Lewis, a woman defrauded by a man claiming to be a British military official. The pair had sex and Lewis also paid the man, William Allen Jordan, $5,000 for an alleged security clearance. When Jordan turned out to be a scam artist, Lewis pressed charges and he wound up pleading guilty to defrauding her. Justice served, right? Not in the warped worldview of New Jersey prosecutors, who apparently can’t stand the idea that some areas of interpersonal dynamics aren’t within their prosecutorial reach.

This is too much even for Amanda Marcotte:

Given that this law has very little chance of passing, it shouldn’t matter much. But it does! Because it gives those who oppose any legislation attempting to address sexual abuse (affirmative consent laws, for instance) the ability to point and say: Look, those crazies think everything is rape, even fibbing!

Rape is a fairly straightforward crime. It’s a matter of having sex with someone who does not want to have sex at that moment in time. Despite claims to the contrary, affirmative consent supporters don’t actually want to make it legal to retroactively retract consent. But this law would open the door to allowing people to do so, which actually does muddy the definition and understanding of rape. Jerks who exploit people’s desire to be loved in order to defraud them can be convicted under other laws. Otherwise, relationship fouls are simply not criminal offenses.

It’s good to see that there’s a limiting principle in the state’s sexual policing power. Even for Marcotte.

Maxing Out Our Airports

Adam Minter predicts Thanksgiving-type travel days year-round in coming years:

[E]ven with billions worth of improvements in the pipeline, the picture for travelers remains bleak. Of the 30 busiest U.S. airports (accounting for 70 percent of total U.S. passenger flow), 13 already feel like the day before Thanksgiving one day a week on average. Three airports — Midway, Las Vegas McCarran, and Orlando International — suffer those levels of congestion twice a week. Worse yet, the capacity improvements that are currently slated won’t help much. Within six years, the study notes, 27 of the 30 busiest airports will be Thanksgiving-busy at least once a week.

That this state of affairs is unnatural should be apparent to anyone who flies outside the U.S. even occasionally. In 2011, the World Economic Forum ranked U.S. aviation infrastructure 32nd in the world — behind Malaysia (an assessment that, in my personal experience, remains accurate). This is both embarrassing and somewhat predictable. Developing countries such as Malaysia strongly subsidize airports and airlines, viewing them as important marketing opportunities and first-impression makers.

Clive Irving hates how airlines jam so many seats into coach:

Looking through photographs from the early days of U.S. airlines, I found a shot of the cabin of the Boeing 247, circa 1934. The 247 was the first airplane really to define the form of a modern airliner, flying faster and higher than any predecessor. The passengers in the photo are enjoying a standard of comfort undreamed of in coach today: only one seat on each side of the aisle, generous leg room, nice wide seat cushions, and seat backs shaped to reflect the curves of the human body. Some of the ladies are wearing furs and hats. Even a 200-pounder could sink contentedly into the space without encroaching on anyone else.

In 1934, those passengers paid $160 for a one-way flight from Newark to San Francisco, in today’s money $2,800. This was at the depths of the Great Depression. In its infancy, air travel was a luxury only the wealthy could afford as they flew nonchalantly over the states where the likes of Ma and Pa Joad were fleeing the Dust Bowl. At the front end of the cabin it remains so. Airplanes have become as segregated by class as the old ocean liners—opulence for the rich and the crush of steerage for the rest of us.

But Amy Cohn contends that the disparity in airline ticket prices benefits everyone:

Suppose that an airline offers a 100-seat flight from Philadelphia to Chicago, and that it costs $40,000 to cover the costs of the airplane, fuel, pilots, flight attendants, landing fees, insurance, and so on. The airline needs to make at least $40,000 in ticket revenues for the flight to be worth flying. If the airline were to offer just one fare for all tickets on that flight, what should that fare be? Selling every seat for $425, for a total of $42,500, would make the flight nominally profitable.

But there may not be 100 people willing to pay $425 for this flight. Maybe there are 100 cash-poor college students who want to fly, but can only afford $300 per ticket. On the other hand, there may be 20 business travelers who want to fly, each willing to pay up to $900. … This is where “fare differentiation” comes in. If they can sell $300 seats to 80 college students and $900 seats to 20 business travelers, then they can sell all 100 seats, earning $42,000 and making the flight worth offering.

How all passengers wins:

While it is definitely to the benefit of college students to have business travelers “subsidize” their fares, the business travelers may be getting the bigger benefit—and not just because there are usually a few tickets still available at the last minute (at the highest fare). This fee structure allows airlines to increase the number of flights offered, giving the business traveler more options to choose from.

(Photo: Security lines at Denver International Airport on November 26, 2014. By RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post via Getty Images)

Face Of The Day

Pope Francis attends his weekly audience in St. Peter’s Square on November 26, 2014. During today’s General Audience, Francis told pilgrims the Church is on a continuing journey towards heaven. By Franco Origlia/Getty Images.

Yglesias Award Nominee

“I cannot shake the image of “Jackie” being serially raped on a broken glass table by a fraternity gang a few hundred yards from my office at UVA, perhaps by men who have taken a class by me, especially knowing that her rapists have paid no legal or educational price for their heinous deeds. My own sense of horror and outrage is only deepened by what I found out yesterday: In my Sociology of the Family class, in an anonymous survey, seven of the 103 female students that I am teaching reported that they had been “forced into a sexual act against [their] will,” and an additional 33 of these students reported that a “UVA friend” has experienced such a violation. So, in one large class at the University of Virginia, fully 39 percent of the female students report having been directly affected by forcible sexual assault. To be sure, there are important debates about the prevalence of sexual assault on college campuses, but UVA’s experience indicates that there are more cases of campus rape than many might expect,” – W. Bradford Wilcox, NRO, in a piece called “The Right And Campus Rape”.

Mental Health Break

We’ll be seeing a lot more reporter bloopers after Cato descends today:

The Damage Control Is Done, Ctd

A few readers offer their perspective on the awful situation at the University of Virginia:

I’m a former federal prosecutor and an alum of UVA. I think those who advocate for the criminal justice system being used instead of having colleges investigate sexual assault are asking too much of the criminal justice system. While the gang rape at the center of the Rolling Stone article would be a good case for full prosecutorial investigation, most sexual assaults occurring on most campuses would not. Most “date rape” scenarios would never be prosecuted. Without third-party witnesses or evidence of a “roofie” in the girl’s blood, prosecutors would generally not find enough evidence to indict. The beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard is simply too high in those kinds of cases, and if we left them for the criminal justice system to handle, it would likely end up being an excuse for inaction.

Another goes out on a shaky limb:

As a 2005 UVA grad and fraternity member, I am having a lot of trouble formulating any sort of reaction to this situation without coming off as some sort of rape-supporting monster, but I am very uncomfortable with the rush to judgement and the urge to punish the “bad guys” as quickly and severely as possible.

The Rolling Stone story made me feel sick to my stomach with anger when I started to read it. However, by the end of the article, I was surprised that they even agreed to publish it, considering the explosive implications of the allegations and the lack of proof or corroboration that the story was true. The victim deserves to be believed by her friends, support network, and any counselors or professionals whose job involves helping rape survivors, but a journalist is not supposed to be a credulous scribe for any allegation.

There are some people who will literally wish my violent death for saying this, but there is a chance that the accuser made it up or exaggerated. It happens. That doesn’t mean that we refuse to listen to the allegations and say terrible things about her, but it does mean that we as a society should still ask for proof. The fraternity in question has been essentially destroyed as an institution because of this story, and if it’s true, they totally deserve it. But I would have been much more comfortable if the accuser had at least tried to press charges with the police or the university.

I also see many calls for collective punishment for all fraternities, regardless of their actual record of behavior. This is simply unfair. There are 30 frats at UVA, representing about 30% of the males in the student body. It is absurd to claim that 30% of UVA men are rapists, rape supporters, or otherwise implicated in a “rape culture”.

If anyone had that sort of attitude about women, they wouldn’t even be invited back to a rush event at my house or many others. We voluntarily worked with One in Four on educating every single pledge who came into our organization about consent, preventing assaults, and monitoring each other’s behavior to prevent bad situations. We had multiple sober party monitors at every event with alcohol to go from room to room and make sure nothing bad was happening. That included telling brothers not to bring stumbling drunk girls to their rooms. It included helping find people at the party when their friends were looking for them. It even included calling 911 to get an ambulance to our own doorstep to help a girl who was either drugged or drastically over-served at another house and then wandered to our house looking to drink more.

They Ink, Therefore They Are

Chris Weller muses on body art, young adults, and identity:

Each inked-up person on the train appeared to be in the same age group—Millennials, to use the much-maligned descriptor. Being of the same generation, presumably we all post to social media on a regular basis, through profiles and accounts that compel us to confront the question, Who are you? For some, that choice is liberating: It’s a chance to start from scratch. For others, the sheer volume of options can be paralyzing. In either case, modernity compels us to declare our identity with conviction, whether we’ve found it yet or not. Growing up in a rapidly changing and challenging world, most young people have struggled at some point or another with figuring out who they might be.

Tattoos, recent research suggests, don’t just express identity: They help define it. …

We define who we are by the elements that stick with us—people, stories, places, memories—and we measure ourselves in relation to them, patching the highlights together into what sociologists call a “personal myth.” These myths make sense of often-turbulent lives, integrating our “remembered past, perceived present, and anticipated future,” as [Anne] Velliquette wrote in her 2006 report. Some people use institutions such as religion, work, and family to create this myth. Others use material objects like houses and cars to define it. But Millennials are something of a breed apart. Without access to many of the anchors their parents had to create their personal myths, that sense of stability and permanence is often harder to find.

(Photo from Instagram user ane_a)

How Misconceptions Can Kill

Adam Waytz connects his research on the superhumanization of blacks to the Michael Brown shooting:

Wilson seemed to justify his infliction of lethal pain on to Brown precisely because he perceived Brown to be a superhuman threat. It is easy to feel good or indifferent about superhumanization because it seems to “elevate” black people, celebrating their strength and resilience. Some might even argue that superhumanization of black people is our earnest attempt to counteract sub-humanization of black people. But as the case of Michael Brown demonstrates there is a thin line between superhumanization and subhumanization. Both deny black people’s humanity. Therein lies the problem.

A Dish reader made a similar point yesterday. Bouie is troubled by how Darren Wilson described his encounter with Michael Brown:

Maybe Wilson was an ordinary police officer with all the baggage it carries. Maybe, like many of his peers on the Ferguson police force, he was hard on black teenagers. Maybe, like many Americans, he was a little afraid of them. And maybe all of this—his fear, his bias, and his training—met Michael Brown and combined to create tragedy.

If so, the lesson of Wilson is that he isn’t unique. That his fear is common. And that the same forces that drove Wilson and Brown to confrontation can—and will—drive another Wilson and another Brown to another confrontation with the same deadly results.

Emily Ekins hits the psychology books:

Academic research … tells us that more than a police officer’s conscious intentions may influence their judgments and actions. University of North Carolina psychologist Keith Payne (2001) conducted an experiment finding research participants were more likely to mis-identify a hand tool as a gun when they had to respond quickly, immediately after being shown the face of an African-American male rather than a Caucasian male. Particularly, white and male respondents were faster to identify guns when “primed” with a black face versus a white face.

This suggests that police officers like Daren Wilson may have genuinely believed their lives were threatened, and acted accordingly—but that their conclusions were unduly and implicitly influenced by their own stereotypes.