That was a great couple days in Chicago for Law and Society; I wish I could have stayed an extra day or two, but family calls. Otherwise, I was able to run along the lake, eat Chicago-style pizza (in the pleasant company of Dan, Wendy, and Ben), and spend an almost-perfect afternoon at the Place Where God Intended Baseball To Be Played (even if the Cubs lost because, well, they suck).
Our roundtable, Judges as Umpires, Umpires as Judges: Rethinking the Metaphor, went very well. We had a very good audience (particularly considering it was at 8:15 a.m. the first day of the conference) and a good conversation about sports, the nature of rules, and the nature of judging and adjudication.
You can listen to the discussion here.
I hope we might publish an edited/annotated transcript of the conversation.
But I do need a judge’s ruling on this one. At the game on Friday, I saw a number of t-shirts reading “[Opposing Latino player] does my lawn,” with an outline of a person in a straw hat pushing a lawnmower. So, for example, I saw a shirt in Cardinals colors that said “Zambrano does my lawn” and one in Cubs colors that said “Ozzie Guillen does my lawn.” Is there any way of understanding those shirts that is not obnoxious and insensitive, if not outright offensive?
Finally, I saw an interesting panel on The Wire that featured each presenter showing one favorite clip, including the great trial scene (it only had one really glaring problem that I saw) that I used for my Evidence final this semester. It also had creator/producer David Simon via Skype with a very pessimistic view of American politics, institutions, and society.
Posted by Howard Wasserman on May 30, 2010 at 03:13 PM
Comments
Howard,
Thanks for pointing out these offensive t-shirts. Invoking the stereotype of say, African Americans shining shoes, Asian Americans doing laundry (using an “ancient Chinese secret”, as the ad went) or Latinos doing landscaping is nothing short of racist. I think the key point is that the stereotypes make no sense–they have no insulting bite–if the demeaning work is not matched with the appropriate racial group.
Jack
Posted by: Jack | May 30, 2010 9:58:21 PM