I call racism.
Can someone tell me why this "Cleveland Scene" story about a law student who robs banks gratutiously drops the perp's association with (and eventual presidency of) the school's Black Law Students Association several times? And is full of racial stereotypes and references, up to and including fried chicken? (No watermelon yet, but that's probably for the followup.)
As the television news splashed his mugshot across the screen, one group paid particular attention: the Black Law Students Association at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. The lawyers-in-training studied the mugshot, seeing something familiar in the root-beer-colored eyes, the smudge of a mustache, the Doublemint smile.
This was Stephen Jackson. This was the man they had just elected as their president.
In spring 2004, as the ballots came in from the group's 40-odd members, counting them quickly became academic. Stephen Jackson had won. By a landslide. He hadn't even bothered to campaign.
* * *
The victory came as no surprise to those who knew him around campus. He was a golf partner, a ride home, a calming voice, a slap on the back. On nights out in the Warehouse District, he came dressed to the nines and smoked fine, flavored cigars.
The other first-year students didn't quite know what to make of Jackson. While they were hustling around trying to keep their heads above water, he took law school on cruise control. He strolled into every class as if he were just auditing. He went so far as to bring a blender to class and make himself a shake during the lecture. Another time, he snacked on a bucket of chicken.
* * *
Carroll Jackson opens a dusty album. In it are yellowing photos of a little boy with a soft afro and Chiclet teeth. This is his son, Stephen.
* * *
Stephen was born in inner-city Washington, D.C., but soon after, Carroll and his wife, Rosa Lee, both postal workers, moved to the more placid suburb of Hillcrest Heights, Maryland.
As he got older, Stephen seemed drawn to the streets and the lure of easy cash. He was working at Red Lobster when a friend showed off a gangster roll of bills. Drug money.
* * *
More clear is how Jackson's criminal enterprise worked. He partnered with a man named Dennis Harris, whom he met New Year's Eve 2003, at a party hosted by the Black Law Students Association. Harris was dating a law student, but had spent his life as a criminal. Convictions for selling cocaine and possessing guns had kept the 34-year-old orbiting in and out of jails since he was 13.
* * *
In August, shortly before the start of the next school year and Jackson's inauguration as president of the Black Law Students Association, he received a visit from his half-sister, Angela, and his old friend Corey Jones.
* * *
Jackson is still the slick, confident man breezing his way through adversity. He still thinks he can talk his way out of anything. Asked why he was at the car wash that night with a bag of dye-stained cash, he replies, simply, "Racism."
It's not much of a defense, but it's all he's got. And Jackson zealously keeps up with his appeals.
Ok, the guy is criminal scum. He was caught trying to run fifty grand in dye-stained cash through a change machine. But is it really necessary to refer to his race every third fucking paragraph?
I went through the guy's other articles -- there's one other unnecessarily race-centered article, this one about Arabs. About a family that neglects its children, it's headlined "House of Sand and Fog" and has numerous Arab references inside.
Is this what shit writers with a lust for melodrama have to do now to add, ahem, "color," to their stories?
As the television news splashed his mugshot across the screen, one group paid particular attention: the Black Law Students Association at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. The lawyers-in-training studied the mugshot, seeing something familiar in the root-beer-colored eyes, the smudge of a mustache, the Doublemint smile.
This was Stephen Jackson. This was the man they had just elected as their president.
In spring 2004, as the ballots came in from the group's 40-odd members, counting them quickly became academic. Stephen Jackson had won. By a landslide. He hadn't even bothered to campaign.
* * *
The victory came as no surprise to those who knew him around campus. He was a golf partner, a ride home, a calming voice, a slap on the back. On nights out in the Warehouse District, he came dressed to the nines and smoked fine, flavored cigars.
The other first-year students didn't quite know what to make of Jackson. While they were hustling around trying to keep their heads above water, he took law school on cruise control. He strolled into every class as if he were just auditing. He went so far as to bring a blender to class and make himself a shake during the lecture. Another time, he snacked on a bucket of chicken.
* * *
Carroll Jackson opens a dusty album. In it are yellowing photos of a little boy with a soft afro and Chiclet teeth. This is his son, Stephen.
* * *
Stephen was born in inner-city Washington, D.C., but soon after, Carroll and his wife, Rosa Lee, both postal workers, moved to the more placid suburb of Hillcrest Heights, Maryland.
As he got older, Stephen seemed drawn to the streets and the lure of easy cash. He was working at Red Lobster when a friend showed off a gangster roll of bills. Drug money.
* * *
More clear is how Jackson's criminal enterprise worked. He partnered with a man named Dennis Harris, whom he met New Year's Eve 2003, at a party hosted by the Black Law Students Association. Harris was dating a law student, but had spent his life as a criminal. Convictions for selling cocaine and possessing guns had kept the 34-year-old orbiting in and out of jails since he was 13.
* * *
In August, shortly before the start of the next school year and Jackson's inauguration as president of the Black Law Students Association, he received a visit from his half-sister, Angela, and his old friend Corey Jones.
* * *
Jackson is still the slick, confident man breezing his way through adversity. He still thinks he can talk his way out of anything. Asked why he was at the car wash that night with a bag of dye-stained cash, he replies, simply, "Racism."
It's not much of a defense, but it's all he's got. And Jackson zealously keeps up with his appeals.
Ok, the guy is criminal scum. He was caught trying to run fifty grand in dye-stained cash through a change machine. But is it really necessary to refer to his race every third fucking paragraph?
I went through the guy's other articles -- there's one other unnecessarily race-centered article, this one about Arabs. About a family that neglects its children, it's headlined "House of Sand and Fog" and has numerous Arab references inside.
Is this what shit writers with a lust for melodrama have to do now to add, ahem, "color," to their stories?