Extra Credit For Being From A Good Family-- And For Non-Traditional Rape

What does "from a good family" mean? White and well-off? Religious? And what does it mean to say a politicians is "too old?" And what does it mean when you put those things together. New Jersey Superior Court Judge James Troiano, a 70 year old Republican hack politician, became a judge in 1992 and retired in 2011 but started serving again the following year to help alleviate the crowded system. He has something of a record for giving the benefit of the doubt to young white men accused of serious crimes while granting no such leniency to young men of color of the same age. He also is more harsh on what he calls "traditional rape" than on something in his head that is some other kind of rape.

On Tuesday the Star-Journal reported that "In two unrelated cases involving 16-year-old boys accused of sexually assaulting juveniles, New Jersey family court judges rejected efforts to try them as adults. In one case, a judge found the alleged sexual assault of a 12-year-old girl was not 'especially heinous or cruel,' while the judge in the second matter noted that the defendant is an Eagle scout and 'comes from a good family.' In both cases, the state appellate court reversed the decisions and chastised the family court judges for how they handled the matters." The second case was the one in Troiano's court.

Troiano rejected a Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office bid to waive a 16-year-old, identified as G.M.C., to adult court for an alleged sexual assault at a party in 2017.

About 30 youths had gathered in a basement for a pajama-themed party in which at least some attendees were drinking. In a secluded area of the basement, G.M.C. allegedly assaulted a drunk 16-year-old girl and recorded the incident on his cellphone, according to the appellate ruling.

He allegedly shared the video with friends and sent a text stating “When your first time having sex was rape.”

In seeking a waiver to adult court, prosecutors said G.M.C.’s actions were “sophisticated and predatory,” arguing that he later lied to the girl about the existence of the video while at the same time sharing it with others.

“Filming a cellphone video while committing the assault was a deliberate act of debasement,” prosecutors said.

Troiano, however, said that the defendant “comes from a good family who put him in an excellent school where he was doing extremely well” and noted that he is an Eagle scout.

The judge also expressed concern over whether the prosecution had explained to the girl and her family “the devastating effect a waiver would have on G.M.C.’s life.”

In addition, he questioned the prosecution’s claim that the defendant’s actions were predatory and opined, “I think it’s an issue here, whether or not this young lady was intoxicated to the point that she didn’t understand what was going on.”

In reversing Troiano’s decision, appellate court judges found that he had decided the case for himself, rather than weighing the merits of the waiver application.

“In denying waiver, the trial court minutely considered the circumstances of the offense, made an independent assessment of the juvenile’s culpability, and considered G.M.C’s prior good character … His consideration of these elements, however, sounded as if he had conducted a bench trial on the charges rather than neutrally reviewed the state’s application.”

Troiano said he he doesn't believe that the rape of the drunk girl was "in any way a calculation or cruelty on his part or sophistication or a predatory nature" and that "this young man comes from a good family who put him into an excellent school where he was doing extremely well... He is clearly a candidate for not just college but probably for a good college." What's clear is that Troiano thinks its part of his job to make sure that the rot among American elites continues on course. This is the heart and soul of conservatism. "His scores for college entry were very high," said Troiano, who was also impressed by the rapist's "extracurricular activities, including being an Eagle Scout."

Troiano referred to the young girl who was raped-- and whose head was repeated banged into the while while he was raping her-- "the alleged rape victim." He said he suspected she wasn't so drunk as to have been amenable and that "both sides" should have been taken into account by the prosectors.

The appeals court didn't tell Troiano not to continue on the bench.

Do U.S. Police Have a License to Murder?

Protesters opposed to murder by cop (source; click to enlarge)

by Gaius Publius

The real answer to the headline question requires a look at literally hundreds of cases of unjustified, unpunished police shootings, just a few of which have been in our faces and on our TV screens lately. All of the deaths have been violent, and all have been followed by calls for non-violence ... until the next violent police shooting. Interestingly asymmetrical.

But the case of Tulsa resident Terence Crutcher is the clearest yet, as you'll see below. Do cops in the U.S. have a license to murder, so long as the victim fits the right demographic "type"? 

A Tulsa, Oklahoma police officer shot a black man point-blank as he lay on the ground, tasered. It was caught on camera. The police lied about what had occurred, in an obvious attempt to justify their actions. The camera showed they lied. This is as clear as it gets.

The question — In the U.S., can an on-duty cop be tried for straight-up murder if the victim is black?

We're about to find out. Shaun King, writing in the NY Daily News (emphasis mine):

Arrest the Tulsa officer who killed Terence Crutcher

Tulsa Police Officer Betty Shelby should be arrested today for killing Terence Crutcher. She should've been arrested immediately. On this past Friday evening, she shot and killed a good man. Having just left night classes at Tulsa Community College, Terence Crutcher's SUV broke down in the middle of the road. That's normal. That happens. It's a nuisance, but we've all experienced it at one time or another.

Except for Terence Crutcher, car trouble got him killed. This epitomizes the black experience in America. Something that should have been routine and safe, turned out to be fatal. As it turns out, Officers Betty Shelby and Tyler Turnbough were actually being dispatched for another call when they came across Crutcher's broken down SUV. Thankfully, several cameras filmed the entire incident and eyewitnesses have come forward as well.

The officers say Crutcher approached them — and failed to obey the cops' commands.

As Crutcher reached into his SUV, Turnbough fired his Taser, and shortly after, Shelby shot and killed the man, authorities say.

The last two paragraphs above present the police story — "officers say" and "authorities say." It's almost never true in cases like these — questionable police shootings — that "officers" or "authorities" tell the truth. (One common lie is about how dangerous it is to be a cop, thus the need for the shootings, just in case. Truck drivers, taxi drivers and chauffeurs have more dangerous jobs. Should they get to murder people too?)

Here's what was caught on camera:

But one eyewitness who spoke to Fox 23 in Tulsa communicated that everything about what the police have said happened is inaccurate. She said that Crutcher had his hands in the air and was walking very slowly and carefully, fully aware that being in the presence of police was dangerous, when he was shot and killed. Crutcher's relatives say he was unarmed.

This is never enough, though. For police to be held accountable, the evidence must be outrageously overwhelming. It appears it is in this case.

At 1:30 p.m. Monday, the Tulsa Police Department is going to release audio and video footage from the shooting. Fully aware of just how bad it is, they showed the footage on Sunday to Crutcher's family, their pastor, their attorney, and several local leaders. What they saw infuriated each and every one of them.

"His hands were in the air from all views," Pastor Rodney Goss told the Tulsa World.

And they didn't even act like it mattered:

What disturbed Goss the most, though, is something that we've seen many, many times in shootings like this. After they shot Terence Crutcher, Goss said the police acted like they could care less. They provided no first aid or comfort. According to Goss, several minutes went by before they even really took a look to check on him.

Read King for the final straw, the "one bad dude" comment. You'll also hear that comment coming from the helicopter cops in the second video below. Note how they also assume, from 500 feet, that he was "on something" as he stands by the car ... because, you know, black people. (Yes, I'm saying those cops are racists, straight-up.)

Damning Video, Two Views

And now two views of the murder. For the first, notice the police time stamp at the top right. At 19:44:13 he's tasered to the ground. Six seconds later they shoot him.

The helicopter view has a slightly different time stamp. You can see him tasered at 19:44:45, see that he's essentially motionless on the ground, then shot where he lay.

Straight-up murder if you ask me. If private-citizen-you had shot him, prone and helpless on the ground, and this video was available, you'd be in jail today, even if your name was George Zimmerman.

Do Cops Have a License to Murder in the U.S.?

This is a real question. Are we so authoritarian — and so frightened — that we want our police to kill at will, so long as the victim is from the approved target pool?

If so, let's just say so. If on-duty cops can shoot anyone they feel like, let's admit it and then let's take the consequences, which will not be pretty, by the way. (What do cops do to people who start killing them?)

Cops who shoot unarmed, unthreatening people are murderers. People who enable these murders are complicit. Watch to see what happens. If straight-up police murder isn't a crime, the criminals are everyone who doesn't force a change. Force a change. At least as I see it.

GP
  

Is Equal Justice Ever Possible With Such Gigantic Income Inequality As We Have In The U.S.?

Remember that horrific story-- about a decade back-- about cops in New Orleans shooting unarmed civilians running for their lives from the Hurricane Katrina flood waters? In 2007 5 white police officers were indicted for opening up with shotguns and AK-47s on two families of black people on the Danziger Bridge looking for shelter from the deadly storm. Four people were severely wounded and 2, included a handicapped man, were murdered. The New Orleans Police Department worked to cover up the criminal behavior of their officers but eventually the murderous cops were found guilty and faced as much as 65 years in prison. The case was thrown out and a deal was made in which the officers admitted guilt but were given short sentences. I heard the story on the radio today and it made me think about how the establishment protects itself from equal treatment under the law--and protects its tools of enforcement as well. Obviously the white washing on the Flint lead poisoning catastrophe comes right to mind and how low level civil servants are being scapegoated while Gov. Snyder is still walking around a free man.

Thursday, writing for ProPublica and the New Yorker, Jesse Eisinger took at closer look into why the banksters haven't been punished for their criminal behavior that cost so many families their homes and life savings. My friend Brad put a political spin on Eisinger's point:

Sanders: the system is broken and we need to change it.
Clinton: the system is good and we need to protect it from a few bad apples

Eisinger discovered that the SEC was about to charge Goldman Sachs executives with a serious mortgage fraud case in 2009. But the lawyer whose job was to take the case to trial, James Kidney, sensed that "the SEC staff was more worried about the effect the case would have on Wall Street executives, a fear that deepened when he read an email from Reid Muoio, the head of the SEC’s team looking into complex mortgage securities. Muoio, who had worked at the agency for years, told colleagues that he had seen the 'devasting [sic] impact our little ol’ civil actions reap on real people more often than I care to remember. It is the least favorite part of the job. Most of our civil defendants are good people who have done one bad thing.' This attitude agitated Kidney, and he felt that it held his agency back from pursuing the people who made the decisions that led to the financial collapse."

Kidney became disillusioned. Upon retiring, in 2014, he gave an impassioned going-away speech, in which he called the SEC “an agency that polices the broken windows on the street level and rarely goes to the penthouse floors.”

In our conversations, Kidney reflected on why that might be. The oft-cited explanations — campaign contributions and the allure of private-sector jobs to low-paid government lawyers-- have certainly played a role. But to Kidney, the driving force was something subtler. Over the course of three decades, the concept of the government as an active player had been tarnished in the minds of the public and the civil servants inside working inside the agency. In his view, regulatory capture is a psychological process in which officials become increasingly gun shy in the face of criticism from their bosses, Congress, and the industry the agency is supposed to oversee. Leads aren’t pursued. Cases are never opened. Wall Street executives are not forced to explain their actions.

Kidney still rues the Goldman case as a missed chance to learn the lessons of the financial crisis. “The answers to unasked questions are now lost to history as well as to law enforcement,“ he said. ”It is a shame.”

There were fines but none of the greed-obsessed "good people who have done one bad thing" were ever charged. It's like the entity Goldman Sachs defrauded their customers out of billions of dollars with no humans ever making any decisions about the criminal patterns. While Eisinger was researching a book on the subject for a year, he discovered"case after case in which regulators were reluctant to use the laws and resources available to them. Members of the public don’t have a full sense of the issue because they rarely get to see how such decisions are made inside government agencies." Kidney helped him with his research and showed him how "the big banks had 'captured' his agency-- that is, that the SEC, which is charged with keeping financial institutions in line, had become overly cautious to the point of cowardice."

The Abacus investigation traces to a moment in late 2006 when the hedge fund Paulson & Co. asked Goldman to create an investment that would pay off if U.S. housing prices fell. Paulson was hoping to place a bet on what we now know as “the big short”: the notion that the real-estate market was inflated by an epic bubble and would soon collapse. To facilitate Paulson’s short position, Goldman created Abacus, an investment composed of what amounted to side bets on mortgage bonds. Abacus would pay off big if people began defaulting on their mortgages. Goldman marketed the investment to a bank in Germany that was willing to take the opposite side of the bet — that housing prices would remain stable. The bank, IKB, was cautious enough to ask that Goldman hire an independent manager to assemble the deal and look out for its interests.

This is where things got dodgy. Unbeknownst to IKB, the hedge fund Paulson & Co. improved its odds of success by inducing the manager, a company called ACA Capital, to include the diciest possible housing bonds in the deal. Paulson wasn’t just betting on the horse race. The fund was secretly slipping Quaaludes to the favorite. ACA did not understand that Paulson was betting against the security. Goldman knew, but didn’t give either ACA or IKB the full picture. (For its part, Paulson & Co. contended that ACA was free to reject its suggestions and said that it never misled anyone in the deal.)

When SEC officials discovered this in 2009, they decided that Goldman Sachs had misled both the German bank and ACA by making false statements and omitting what the law terms “material details” — and that these actions constituted a violation of securities law. (The SEC oversees civil enforcement of U.S. securities law and can charge both companies and individuals with violations. Its work can often be a precursor to criminal cases, which are handled by prosecutors at the Justice Department.)

Kidney was a trial attorney with two decades of experience at the SEC, and had won his share of courtroom battles. But the stakes in this case were particularly high. Politically, it was a delicate moment. The global financial system was only just recovering, millions of Americans had lost their jobs, and there was growing public anger about the bailout of the banks and car companies in Detroit. When Kidney looked at the work that had been done on the case, he found what he saw as serious shortcomings. For one, SEC investigators had not interviewed enough executives. For another, the staff decided to charge only the lowest man on the totem pole, a midlevel Goldman trader named Fabrice Tourre, a French citizen who lived in London, and who was in his late twenties when the deal came together. Tourre had joked about selling the doomed deal to “widows and orphans,” and had referred to himself as “Fabulous Fab,’’ a sobriquet that probably would not endear him to a jury. He was an easy target, but charging him was not likely to send a signal that Washington was serious about cracking down on Wall Street’s excesses.

Kidney could not understand why SEC staffers were reluctant to investigate Tourre’s bosses at Goldman or anyone at Paulson & Co. Charging only Goldman, he said, would send exactly the wrong message to Wall Street. “This appears to be an unbelievable fraud,” he wrote to his boss, Luis Mejia. “I don’t think we should bring it without naming all those we believe to be liable.”

Does anyone care? Sure, even if Bernie isn't getting more votes than she is, he's getting plenty of votes and those are the people who do care. People who vote for Hillary... they either can't comprehend, are complicit or don't care enough to be motivated by it. These people care; that's how they got on this list:

Bernie Sanders Scores Big Win; Breaks Major Fundraising Record

"Killer Mike" interviews Bernie Sanders. Could this dynamic be a game-changer in southern Democratic primaries?

by Gaius Publius

In the most recent underwatched Democratic debate, there was a lot of ISIS-this and terror-that thrown around — and not one climate word, as near as I could tell. It was therefore presumed, by those who know their job is to tell us what to know, that Clinton "won" (example here).

And yet, and yet, when when people who are paid to tell you what to know are removed from the equation, stuff like this happens (go ahead; take the poll yourself to see the most current result).

From the Sanders campaign:

Bernie Sanders Scores Big Win; Breaks Major Fundraising Record

MANCHESTER, N.H. – U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders won a major victory in Saturday night’s third Democratic presidential debate, according to social media measures and in polls by Time, The Wall Street Journal and other major media websites.

During the debate, Sanders also reached a major milestone in grassroots financial support. His campaign has now received more contributions than any other candidate at this point in any White House bid — more than 2.3 million contributions.

President Barack Obama was the record holder. Through Dec. 31, 2011, his re-election campaign reported 2,209,636 donations. The Sanders campaign crossed that mark during the debate as grassroots supporters flooded the BernieSanders.com website. The average contribution for the night to the Sanders campaign was below $25.

On social media, where Sanders’ grassroots revolution began, there were more Google searches for Sanders than for any other candidate. His campaign had the most retweeted tweet of the night, according to Twitter. He gained more followers on Twitter than any other candidate and Facebook said people talked about Sanders more than any other candidate online.

After the debate, Sanders was named the winner by viewers who voted in large-sample polls from Time, PBS, The Wall Street Journal, Slate, Telegraph.co.uk and The Washington Times.

On Time’s website, for example, 84 percent of the 27,246 who had taken the poll in the first 90 minutes after the debate said Sanders won.

Sanders is winning support from Democrats hand over fist. Will that be enough to win him the actual nomination? I guess we'll see. If you'd like to lend your support to Sanders and to those courageous candidates who have dared to stand with him, you can do so here (adjust the split any way you like at the link).

Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina

These are the states that count for Sanders, the states that will keep him viable or secure the nomination for Clinton — in order, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina. According to the latest polls, Clinton has a narrow lead in Iowa (+5), Sanders has a large lead in New Hampshire (+14), Clinton has a very large lead in South Carolina (+36), and a decent lead, according to one out-of-date poll, in Nevada (+16).

I wouldn't count this a done deal, however. A Sanders win in Iowa would go a long way to stretch his viability. Nevada is not out of reach — Sanders has DREAM activist Cesar Vargas working for him there — and even the South Carolina lead that Clinton has depends on almost-automatic institutional support for mainstream Democrats by a community for whom, especially, "black lives matter." Clinton, remember, has a track record on racial justice issues, and even today supports the (clearly racially biased) death penalty. The pro-institutional-Democrat dynamic could easily shift, especially if more like the video at the top turns up.

All of which is to say — if you're a Sanders supporter and not a surrender kind of person, the time to lift your hand to the task is now. (For example, got time to spend in Iowa?)

GP

The Nature Of Conservatism-- A Sick And Deranged War Against Women

The stories coming out of India and Pakistan about the murders of women last week have been gut-wrenching. Both were primitive and barbaric acts within the context of conservative and patriarchal culture that deem women less than human. Mulayam Singh Yadav, from Uttar Pradesh's governing party, was widely quoted in the media as saying "Boys will be boys" in response to the brutal gang rapes and murders of two girls from a poor family. The police tried covering the whole incident up. When I heard about it on the radio, I nearly threw up.

And, make no mistake, this kind of brutality and terrorism against women is very much a part of sick conservative politics. Ramsevak Paikra, a minister from the new far right Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling party has said rapes happen "accidentally."

"Such incidents (rapes) do not happen deliberately. These kind of incidents happen accidentally," Paikra, of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which also rules at the national level, told reporters.

Paikra, who was asked for his thoughts on the gang-rape and lynching of two girls in a neighbouring state, later said he had been misquoted. His original remarks were broadcast on television networks.

The remarks come just days after the home minister of the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh state said rapes were "sometimes right, sometimes wrong."

The minister, Babulal Gaur, gave the remarks on Thursday amid growing anger over the gang-rape and murder of the girls, aged 12 and 14, in northern Uttar Pradesh state late last month.

Modi, whose party came to power in a landslide election victory, has so far stayed silent over the rapes.

…Several politicians have sought to blame tight jeans, short skirts and other Western influences for the country's rise in rapes, while the head of a village council pointed to chowmein which he claimed led to hormone imbalances among men.

This isn't about Hinduism or the Muslim religion. This is about a primitive, patriarchal, conservative worldview-- one shared, if usually tempered-- by conservatives in our own country as well. Friday, Racine billionaire and sociopath, Samuel Curtis Johnson III, pleaded guilt to sexually assaulting-- for years-- his young stepdaughter. He got off with a slap on the wrist. He'll serve a few weeks in jail and pay a $6,000 fine.

His daughter was 15 in 2011 when she accused Johnson of being a sex addict.

The girl says Johnson would enter her bedroom at night and fondle her breasts, buttocks and vaginal area, the court documents state. According to the documents, the girl told investigators that Johnson "used his mouth to molest her," exposing himself through his pajama pants and frequently asking her for intercourse.

According to court documents the girl told her mother about the abuse in November in an effort to protect her younger sister.

Johnson's company manufactures household cleaning products like Fantastik, Windex and Draino and his personal net worth is $2.2 billion. Aviva Shen, writing for Think Progress digs into how Johnson got off so easy. The felony he was originally charged with could have led to 40 years in prison, Billionaires don't get 40 years in prison, so the prosecutor downgraded the charges to a misdemeanor, claiming the girl and her mother would not cooperate.

Johnson’s lawyers insisted the girl’s medical records be released to see if she had reported the abuse to her therapist, and a court held that the girl could not testify unless she released the records. The girl and her mother refused to release them, so the girl was barred from taking the stand. The case essentially fell apart without her as a witness, the prosecution said.

“Refusal to cooperate” is a common reason rapists go free, and obscures the difficult situations and complex power dynamics victims face when they come forward. Victims, especially children, are often traumatized and unable to navigate the rigid legal maze. They are penalized harshly if their stories change or if they don’t seem emotional enough. Sometimes they are even arrested if they try to back out. When the abuser is a family member, victims often feel conflicted about exposing them to a legal battle and face more pressure to back down. Indeed, prosecutors say the girl and her mother did not want to press charges against Johnson, whom they are likely dependent on financially and socially.

When the accused rapist is a powerful community leader, like Johnson, the costs to “cooperating” are even higher. In the now infamous Maryville case, prosecutors said they initially dropped charges against a football star because the victim refused to cooperate. That justification didn’t address that the victim had been ruthlessly bullied for months, her mother was fired from her job, and that the family ultimately felt the need to leave town.

Johnson is the latest symbol of how the justice system works differently for the super-rich. One wealthy heir who raped his 3-year-old daughter was recently sentenced to probation because the judge decided he “will not fare well” in prison. In another high profile case, a wealthy teenager successfully avoided jail time for killing four people in a drunk driving incident by arguing he had “affluenza”-- that his rich parents had never taught him how to make moral choices.

Is this is a good time to mention that it is the official policy of DWT that, while rapists should be castrated, all billionaires should be taxed out of existence?



UPDATE: Legal Notice

This e-mail, reasonable enough, came from someone representing SC Johnson (the company) who seems quite eager to disassociate the company from the billionaire/child sex predator, SC Johnson.

Hi Howie,

Wanted to reach out to you and kindly request a minor correction on your June 8 blog, “The Nature Of Conservatism-- A Sick And Deranged War Against Women.”

Specifically, where it notes that “Johnson's company manufactures household cleaning products like Fantastik, Windex and Draino and his personal net worth is $2.2 billion,” we’d like to request the underlined here/first half of this sentence is updated to “Johnson is an heir to the Johnson family fortune”-- removing the part that suggests he owns the company.

Curt Johnson has no formal relationship to SC Johnson; he has not worked for or served SC Johnson in any capacity for more than 18 years.

Thanks very much for your help-- please let me know of any questions.

The Saints' Scott Fujita must drive the reactionary NFL establishment just plain bonkers

"People say, 'That's so courageous of you.' To me, it's not that courageous to have an opinion, especially if you wholeheartedly think it's the right thing. For me, standing up for equal rights is the right thing to do."

-- "bad-ass linebacker" Scott Fujita of the New Orleans Saints

by Ken

Here I was, all set to revisit, for the umpteenth time, how our "experts" -- on foreign affairs, on the economy, on health care, on you-name-it -- are chosen for both official and general media use. (Hint: It has nothing to do with competence, and not much more to do with having ever been right about anything.)

You might think we've done that old subject to death, and yet it's astonishing how little effect it has. Here we are, after all, taking advice about dealing with Afghanistan and Iran from people who were 0-for-everything-they-said-or-wrote about Iraq, or turning to the people who crashed the economy, and their sideline cheerleaders, to figure out how to extricate ourselves from the fine mess they got us into. It defies logic, reason, sense. Or does it?

Believe me, I dread writing about this (again) as much as you dread reading about it (again). But do we have a choice?

For today, we have. Our friend Jimmy the Saint has passed along a story I would probably have missed, since as I believe I mentioned I've taken a sabbatical from professional football this year. It's a story that embodies hope and change you can believe in, though if you're like me, the farther you read in this piece by the Boston Globe's Adam Kilgore, the harder you may find it to believe -- coming as this does from a guy acknowledged as a "bad-ass linebacker."

In this story you're also going to meet an interesting sportswriter named Dave Zirin, who set himself the seemingly arduous task of finding a professional athlete who would lend public support to the Washington, D.C. National Equality March in support of LGBT rights. As Adam Kilgore writes:

Before reaching out to Fujita, Zirin had e-mailed several dozen professional athletes asking them to endorse the march. Each one, even players Zirin knew supported it, declined to publicly stand behind it. "They didn't want to go near this," Zirin said. "It was too third-rail."

In his support of gay rights, Zirin wanted to tap into the sports world, which he said is often regarded as "the last hamlet of homophobia."

Zirin believed that dissolving that stereotype could empower the campaign.

"The last hamlet of homophobia" indeed! Unless I've missed something, and I don't think I have, we still haven't had an American male in a major team sport come out while he was still playing. A lot of people have speculated on the impact it will have when we have our first gay star quarterback, or linebacker, or slugger, or pitcher, or NBA scoring champ. The reality is that quite likely we've already had all of these; what we haven't had is any declared-gay ones, or even declared-gay teammates of the above. And of course the reason is that "last hamlet of homophobia" that is the sports world. If you were a gay professional athlete, and had spent as much time in locker rooms as you would have to have, you would think long and hard before you would want to face a locker room after coming out.

Let's be clear, Scott Fujita isn't gay. But in some ways that makes this story more remarkable. Scott reached out for trouble, as opposed to just coming to grips with the trouble forced on him by the primitive attitudes of a segment of American society.

As Kilgore tells us, Scott's adoptive father, Rodney Fujita, was born in 1943 in a Japanese-American internment camp while Nagao Fujita, Scott's grandfather, was fighting in Italy with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. Scott's paternal grandmother, Lillie, is still alive, and as you'll see, they've talked about her wartime experience. (You may be surprised by what he learned from her.)

I really couldn't find anything in the Kilgore report that I was willing to omit, so here's the whole thing. Pay as little attention as you can to my boldfacing. Think of it as mere graffiti, or maybe the kind of mindless "highlighting" you see people inflict on helpless books with their marking pens -- in public!

Solid backing by Saint

Fujita unafraid to support gay rights

By Adam Kilgore, Globe Staff | February 3, 2010

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. -- When the request arrived in an e-mail last fall, Scott Fujita replied immediately and without reservation. A friend had asked him his opinion. He answered. That was how Fujita looked at it.

The swiftness and certitude of Fujita's reply stunned Dave Zirin, the friend who sent the e-mail. Zirin had not made a typical request, not for an NFL linebacker. He was looking for a professional athlete to lend his name to the National Equality March, a rally in Washington for gay rights.

On Sunday, Fujita will reach the pinnacle of his football career, playing linebacker for the New Orleans Saints in the Super Bowl. Fujita describes it as "this small moment in time where you have a platform to do some good things." Last fall, that included speaking out in support of gay rights, a rare step in a professional sporting culture that often turns social stances into landmines.

Fujita, who is married, the father of twin daughters, and straight, pushes against the rising trend in sports to remain mum on cultural and political touchstones. His boldness, shaped by his unusual upbringing, makes him an uncommon and effective advocate for what he believes in.

"People asked me a question and I gave my opinion," Fujita said. "People say, ‘That's so courageous of you.' To me, it's not that courageous to have an opinion, especially if you wholeheartedly think it's the right thing. For me, standing up for equal rights is the right thing to do."

Fujita's show of support for gay rights began in the fall with Zirin, a Sirius radio show host, sports correspondent for The Nation magazine, and author of edgeofsports.com, a website dedicated to the intersection of sports and politics.

Before reaching out to Fujita, Zirin had e-mailed several dozen professional athletes asking them to endorse the march. Each one, even players Zirin knew supported it, declined to publicly stand behind it. "They didn't want to go near this," Zirin said. "It was too third-rail."

In his support of gay rights, Zirin wanted to tap into the sports world, which he said is often regarded as "the last hamlet of homophobia."

Zirin believed that dissolving that stereotype could empower the campaign.

Zirin had befriended Fujita while working with him on a column, and Fujita struck him as a man unafraid to speak his mind. He hoped Fujita would help but assumed he at least would waffle. But there was the e-mailed response: "Absolutely."

Now Zirin worried. Didn't Fujita want to at least discuss the implications of an endorsement? Fujita told Zirin they could talk if he wanted, but nothing would change his mind.

"The only pressure that Scott feels," Zirin said, "is the pressure to be true to his conscience."

Fujita was adopted by a third-generation Japanese-American man named Rodney and a Caucasian woman named Helen. He feels he owes his life to them. In some states, there have been laws proposed that would allow only married couples to adopt. This deeply bothered Fujita; he interpreted the proposals as an attempt to block foster children from being adopted into loving homes.

"To me, the right to marry is a right that all men should have," Fujita said. "To me, it's more a human issue than just a gay/straight/political issue."

On Oct. 6, Fujita outlined his position in an interview by Zirin posted on the Huffington Post. The piece pinballed around the Internet days before an estimated 200,000 people attended the National Equality March.

Zirin believed Fujita's public stance -- along with a column posted in April on the Huffington Post by Ravens linebacker Brandon Ayanbadejo championing gay marriage -- reached a swath of Americans who otherwise may have been unmoved.

"It's important any time we have the ability to break free from stereotypes," Zirin said. "You have to get your head around the idea that Scott is a bad-ass linebacker for the New Orleans Saints and that he speaks his mind in support of gay rights."

Football locker rooms are not generally considered hotbeds of progressive thought. But Fujita said players are "more tolerant than they get credit for. It's not a big issue."

The absence of conflict owes partly to Fujita's personality. He is one of the most respected leaders and well-liked people on the Saints.

"He's flexible enough and he's a good guy," linebacker Scott Shanle said. "We all like when he brings out his opinions. Debates get started. You end up with two or three people in an argument, then you've got 10 to 20 people that are in an argument. It's good just to get everyone together."

In 2006, Fujita left the Dallas Cowboys to play for the Saints. People asked him why. The Cowboys were a marquee NFL franchise. Devastation had engulfed New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Fujita chose New Orleans because he told himself, "This could be bigger than football." Fujita wanted to help the ravaged city. He devotes time to adoption, breast cancer awareness (his mother is a two-time survivor), wetlands restoration, and other causes. This season, the Saints nominated him as their Walter Payton Man of the Year.

In 2007, Fujita started working with Covenant House, a shelter for homeless children aged 16 to 21 that also provides health clinics and various other services. Once every couple weeks, he drops off clothes and toys his 2-year-old daughters have outgrown. He visits with children and signs autographs in the cafeteria. Several of those kids have been failed by the foster care system.

"That is partly why Scott has taken us under his wing," said Renee Blance, director of development at Covenant House. "I think he knows he could have been in their position if he had not been adopted by such a great family."

Fujita was born in 1979 to a teenaged mother who decided she did not have the means or the will to raise a son. She put him up for adoption, and Rodney and Helen Fujita adopted him when he was 6 months old. They ate rice with chopsticks and celebrated Japanese holidays. Fujita, who is white, embraced Japanese culture. From childhood, he considered himself Japanese.

"I have no Japanese blood in my body," he said. "I have a Japanese heart."

In 1943, Nagao Fujita was fighting in Italy with the 442d Regimental Combat Team while his wife Lillie was living in an internment camp. While Nagao fought in World War II, Lillie gave birth to Rodney Fujita in the Arizona desert.

As he grew older, Scott Fujita asked his grandmother about her experience. Nagao died long ago, but Lillie is still alive, and Scott still speaks with her.

"I didn't hear any sense of resentment at all in her voice," Fujita said. "I never have. To be able to not just deal with it, but to become better from it, I always say, ‘What do I have to complain about?' "

Fujita received a degree at Cal-Berkeley in political science and later earned a master's in education. When he is done playing football, he plans on maintaining his platform. He wants to become a public school teacher, and he will still be a man who gives his opinion when he is asked.

"I know there's a certain stigma that comes from being from Berkeley," Fujita said. "And I'm proud of that stigma, to tell you the truth. I never claim to have all of the answers. I don't know someone who does have all the answers. I just have opinions."

Suddenly I have a rooting interest Sunday. Go, Saints!

#

Plaxico Burress And The Nexus Of Politics And Crime

By NOAH

I don’t know how many DWT readers follow professional sports but I am a DWT blogger who does, if only from the safety of my armchair. I’m not one to paint a logo on any part of my face or body.

As I write this, the breaking news in New York is that former New York Giants wide receiver, Plaxico Burress has agreed to change his plea to guilty on a gun charge and expects to be sentenced to 2 years in the New York State prison system. His crime: Carrying an unregistered loaded gun into a nightclub. This, of course, is a very common occurrence here in New York and elsewhere but Burress got caught when the gun, tucked in his pants, accidentally discharged and put a bullet in his leg. Luckily, no one else was injured. The penalty for this crime in New York is 3.5 to 15 years in jail. Burress will be sentenced on September 22nd and is expected to serve a minimum of 20 months of a 2 year sentence.

So why this post? Well, many have gotten off with less and there is some background, background of the kind that judges often take into consideration when giving the guilty less of a sentence for the same crime. Guess what. Here in New York City, an election is on the near horizon. Mayor Mike Bloomberg is already spending his billions on incessant “ain’t he a wonderful superhero of a mayor” advertising and has been adamant that Burress get the max. Same with our senile DA Robert Morganthau who appears to have woken up merely to endlessly weigh in on the Buress case in a parting shot just before he retires this year at age 90!

More background: I do not know Plaxico Burress but my take, and I am not alone here, is that he is a very dysfunctional guy but not a bad guy. Those who do know him have made statements that only serve to confirm my gut feeling. This is no OJ and this is no Michael Vick. I work in the music business and I know dysfunctional people when I see them. I can spot them a mile away. I have dealt with very talented artists who are ruled by childhood issues and their insecurities. Some have great trouble even going outside. The only place where they can seem to function is on a stage. Buress strikes me as pretty much the same, a person without bearings unless he is on a football field. People pay to see him play.

Plaxico even registered his gun. Unfortunately, he only registered it in his home state and thought that was all he had to do. I repeat. Unlike so many people who carry guns on an evening out about town, he registered his gun. Yes, he broke the law. Yes. Ignorance isn’t much of an excuse. There was, however, no intent to commit a crime. Burress does not adhere to the “thuglife.” His own wife is an attorney. Why, you ask, was he carrying a gun? A few nights before, a teammate was held up at gunpoint in his own driveway. Real thugs follow rich people like Buress home. A pro football player may be 6 foot 6 of solid muscle but, if someone is pointing a Glock at them, they usually know how to act.

So, the questions I will ponder on this today are: 1) What if Burress was not a well-known, high profile professional athlete, an African-American one at that? 2) What if Bloomberg didn’t feel the pressure to appear “tough on crime” in an election year? 3) Yes, the sentence could have been worse, but what constructive purpose in the life of Plaxico Burress or our lives will sentencing a dysfunctional man-child to 2 years in the state pen serve? Will he come out a better person?

Plaxico Burress made a very bad mistake. We are lucky that no one else was hurt in that nightclub. He didn’t comprehend the laws of gun registration. I understand that different states have different laws regarding sentencing, too, but Michael Vick beat dogs to death. Michael Vick drowned dogs. Michael Vick hung dogs Michael Vick electrocuted dogs. Plaxico Burress registered his gun, thought he had it covered. And, Michael Vick and Plaxico Burress got the same sentence. At what point did the vagaries of an election year outweigh the vagaries in Plaxico’s mind? Are our laws fair and balanced? You decide.