Preliminary Results of Backlog Meme
Oct. 22nd, 2006 10:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sub_dividedFrom the last entry. Still taking book and movie review requests! Really, you'll be doing me a favor.
Please ignore bad spelling and grammar, these were typed directly into the "reply to comment" field.
BOOK REVIEWS:
Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake
Roger Delany, The Fall of the Towers
Allegra Goodman, Intuition
Diana Wynn Jones, The Magicians of Caprona/Witch Week
Tom Robbins, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas
Alexander McCall Smith, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
Robertson Davies, Fifth Business
Celestine Vaite, Breadfruit
TELEVISION REVIEW:
Veronica Mars season 3
MOVIE REVIEWS:
Willard
Plan 9 From Outer Space
Twenty-five years ago, Vincent Chin was beaten to death by two white autoworkers outside a McDonald's in downtown Detroit. In a case that shocked the nation and mobilized the Asian-American community, the two men – Michael Nitz, who held Chin down, and Ronald Ebens, who swung the bat – were let off with a $3,000 fine and a warning not to do it again. The case was later tried in federal court, where Ebens was found to have violated Chin’s civil rights; two years later, a Cincinnati jury cleared him of all charges. To this day neither man has ever served time in jail.
How could this have happened? The inadequacy of the 1982 conviction can be blamed on local conditions: on Detroit’s overburdened judicial system, on the racism of the presiding judge, on the systematic devaluation of the testimonies of those not considered upstanding citizens – the exotic dancers, Chinese mothers, and black police officers involved (or more accurately, not involved) in the case. It could be argued that these things are specific to Detroit and that Judge Kaufman’s decision would never have happened in a better-funded, less racially charged area.
And yet the federal trial that ought to have set the record straight, didn’t. Why not? By 1986, the facts were clear: Chin argued with Ebens at a strip club downtown. The two fought and were thrown out. In the parking lot, Ebens withdrew a baseball bat from the trunk of his car. Chin ran; Ebens and Nitz caught up with him twenty minutes later. These facts are totally at odds with the initial conviction of manslaughter. They are also odds with conclusion of the jury in Cincinnati that Eben’s actions had nothing to do with race: "You little motherfuckers are taking our jobs" is, in Detroit, an indisputably racial statement. It is a reference to the Japanese auto industry (never mind that Chin was Chinese-American).
What happened? At its starkest, this case represents the privileging of one viewpoint above others. Because Ebens was likeable and charismatic, because was confident and did not feel that he had done anything wrong -- because he was white – his testimony counted for more than the testimonies of every other eyewitness combined. Ultimately the fault must lie with a justice system that assumes guilt or innocence based on background. Contrary to statements made by Judge Kaufman, our justice system is predicated on the idea that punishment should, in fact, fit the crime and not the criminal. Gut feelings, which can easily be influenced by racial or other biases, by partial impressions, or even by the occasional sociopath, should not be allowed to take the place of reasoned judgment.
America today has seen the rise of all sorts of judgments predicated on “instinct”. Racial profiling is one example. Some of the government’s anti-terrorist initiatives are another. There is a growing sense that “facts” are not to be relied upon, that intuitions of what is right are somehow more reliable. Clearly, in this case, they weren't.
***
Who Killed Vincent Chin is a 1996 documentary about...the death of Vincent Chin? That stuff above, behind the cut, was written for class ("pretend you are writing a 25th anniversary op/ed piece about why Vincent Chin shouldn't be forgotten...incidentally, being published in a major newspaper is extra points :D:D:D"). It's not really about the documentary, which can best be described as INCREDIBLY CREEPY OMFG. I really wasn't kidding when I said Ron Ebens is a sociopath. To hear him tell it, if he had just happened to have gone to the game that day, and not to the club, Vincent Chin needn't have died. Really, it's just bad luck that they ran into each other and he ended up swinging that baseball bat! It could have happened to anyone. What he really regrets is that he was locked up on Father's Day -- because that's really terrible, isn't it, to not be home for Father's Day.
Please ignore bad spelling and grammar, these were typed directly into the "reply to comment" field.
BOOK REVIEWS:
Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake
Roger Delany, The Fall of the Towers
Allegra Goodman, Intuition
Diana Wynn Jones, The Magicians of Caprona/Witch Week
Tom Robbins, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas
Alexander McCall Smith, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
Robertson Davies, Fifth Business
Celestine Vaite, Breadfruit
TELEVISION REVIEW:
Veronica Mars season 3
MOVIE REVIEWS:
Willard
Plan 9 From Outer Space
Twenty-five years ago, Vincent Chin was beaten to death by two white autoworkers outside a McDonald's in downtown Detroit. In a case that shocked the nation and mobilized the Asian-American community, the two men – Michael Nitz, who held Chin down, and Ronald Ebens, who swung the bat – were let off with a $3,000 fine and a warning not to do it again. The case was later tried in federal court, where Ebens was found to have violated Chin’s civil rights; two years later, a Cincinnati jury cleared him of all charges. To this day neither man has ever served time in jail.
How could this have happened? The inadequacy of the 1982 conviction can be blamed on local conditions: on Detroit’s overburdened judicial system, on the racism of the presiding judge, on the systematic devaluation of the testimonies of those not considered upstanding citizens – the exotic dancers, Chinese mothers, and black police officers involved (or more accurately, not involved) in the case. It could be argued that these things are specific to Detroit and that Judge Kaufman’s decision would never have happened in a better-funded, less racially charged area.
And yet the federal trial that ought to have set the record straight, didn’t. Why not? By 1986, the facts were clear: Chin argued with Ebens at a strip club downtown. The two fought and were thrown out. In the parking lot, Ebens withdrew a baseball bat from the trunk of his car. Chin ran; Ebens and Nitz caught up with him twenty minutes later. These facts are totally at odds with the initial conviction of manslaughter. They are also odds with conclusion of the jury in Cincinnati that Eben’s actions had nothing to do with race: "You little motherfuckers are taking our jobs" is, in Detroit, an indisputably racial statement. It is a reference to the Japanese auto industry (never mind that Chin was Chinese-American).
What happened? At its starkest, this case represents the privileging of one viewpoint above others. Because Ebens was likeable and charismatic, because was confident and did not feel that he had done anything wrong -- because he was white – his testimony counted for more than the testimonies of every other eyewitness combined. Ultimately the fault must lie with a justice system that assumes guilt or innocence based on background. Contrary to statements made by Judge Kaufman, our justice system is predicated on the idea that punishment should, in fact, fit the crime and not the criminal. Gut feelings, which can easily be influenced by racial or other biases, by partial impressions, or even by the occasional sociopath, should not be allowed to take the place of reasoned judgment.
America today has seen the rise of all sorts of judgments predicated on “instinct”. Racial profiling is one example. Some of the government’s anti-terrorist initiatives are another. There is a growing sense that “facts” are not to be relied upon, that intuitions of what is right are somehow more reliable. Clearly, in this case, they weren't.
***
Who Killed Vincent Chin is a 1996 documentary about...the death of Vincent Chin? That stuff above, behind the cut, was written for class ("pretend you are writing a 25th anniversary op/ed piece about why Vincent Chin shouldn't be forgotten...incidentally, being published in a major newspaper is extra points :D:D:D"). It's not really about the documentary, which can best be described as INCREDIBLY CREEPY OMFG. I really wasn't kidding when I said Ron Ebens is a sociopath. To hear him tell it, if he had just happened to have gone to the game that day, and not to the club, Vincent Chin needn't have died. Really, it's just bad luck that they ran into each other and he ended up swinging that baseball bat! It could have happened to anyone. What he really regrets is that he was locked up on Father's Day -- because that's really terrible, isn't it, to not be home for Father's Day.