WRITE WHAT I LIKE

American Vigilantes: To Catch a Predator

Nobody likes a sex predator, but America does love a witch-hunt.

Watching NBC's smash hit To Catch a Predator, I'm struck by how easy it is to make us feel comfortable breaking the law to trap a criminal we love to hate.  The show thrives on the logic of vigilantism - breaking all the rules to exact vicious justice against those it becomes popular to place below the law - an American tradition with it's deepest roots in the criminalization of Black people.

Esquire has a great piece up by Luke Dittrich, Tonight on Dateline This Man Will Die, that meticulously covers a recent ill-fated episode of the show that ended in an untimely death for Bill Conradt, a Texas Assistant D.A.

The article gives an inside look at Dateline's Hollywood version of justice - how its producers bully small-town law enforcement into catching entrapping the most salacious group of sex predators (the rabbi wants teen sex in whipped cream!) for the best production values.  After reading the piece, it is hard to argue  that getting sex predators off the street is of any concern compared to producing a true-crime reality show with the juice to turn Dateline into the Survivor of prime time newsmagazines :

"The thing is, Doris Berry is a prosecutor. She wants to see bad guys punished. She’s read the transcripts, which means she knows most of these men are bad and a lot of them are probably dangerous. And if she rejects the cases, she knows what will happen: Instead of receiving the incarceration and supervision that might prevent them from someday soliciting real kids, not fake ones, they’ll receive only Dateline’s nationally televised shaming.

But the law is the law, and you can’t just wish a batch of mangled cases good.

On June 1, 2007, seven months after the end of the sting operation, three months after Dateline airs the relevant episode of “To Catch a Predator,” the Collin County District Attorney’s office will announce that it has decided not to pursue indictments for any of the suspects Murphy police [local law enforcement working with the show] arrested outside the decoy house."

And if you don't like Esquire you can get another take.  As Douglas McCollam points out in a piece over at the Columbia Journalism Review, despite To Catch a Predator's dubious-at-best commitment to putting away potential predators, it's a huge ratings winner because, like all the most popular reality TV, it taps the keg of public humiliation - and America is all too ready to get drunk.

But  what both pieces miss, while highlighting the pitfalls of an ends-justify-means approach to law enforcement, is what happens when that logic is applied more broadly.  How can the Jena 6 face 20+ year jail sentences for a playground fight with a noose-hanging schoolmate?  How can Kenneth Foster end up on Texas death row for a crime no one, including the state, argued he committed?  The answer, perhaps obviously, is that the misapplication of laws along the color line still put Black people in prison at record numbers.

What isn't so obvious: it is a vigilante culture that allows us to accept a brutally unjust criminal justice system because, though the rules are being broken, they are working against Black people who too often turn out to be the witches in America's hunt.  The show reminds me why I don't want justice in the unchecked hands of any  American - Chris Hansen, the local sheriff or a Supreme Court Justice.

To Catch a Predator teaches us that the law is in the hands of the most powerful and (self) righteous.  It seems like a bad lesson, but looking around, it may just be the sad, enraging truth.

Oprah and Obama Combine Superpowers

This nice lady is Oprah.  She is a billionairess.  The ladies love her, and when she tells them what to purchase, they get it, and a lot of it.  But the question of the day is, will they buy a Barack, the latest luxury item attached to the O brand?

CNN reports that Oprah and Obama are combining forces.  This shouldn't be a huge surprise (she told the man she'd campaign for him on her show - I was watching - and in May  announced her formal endorsement on Larry King).   O is making her promise real this weekend by throwing the other O a fundraiser at her lovely California ranch that's expected to net between $2-3 million.

People with good sense struggle with Oprah.  And I challenge anyone who would dismiss her outright.  (Did you see her coverage in New Orleans just after Katrina?)  But for every moment that Oprah uses her global brand to do good, there are 100 other disparaging, salacious remarks made at gay guests, hours spent selling people things they don't need and endless episodes reinforcing bizarre myths (Secret, swinging, S&M couples babysitting YOUR kids - next week's Oprah!) that aid the culture of fear plaguing America and driving the ugliest part of the culture wars.

But the thing that really gets me about Oprah - the brand - is that its construction has been consciously and comprehensively a-political.  Everything in Oprah-land is about the individual; their ability to triumph over adversity; their personal victimhood; their need for stainless steel appliances and meticulously arched eyebrows.  This connection to people's personal stories is what has made  Oprah - the woman - a star, an icon, a billionaire and the authority that the Obama camp wants to draw on to gain support, particularly among women.

But while  Oprah is allowed to leave politics to the professionals, Obama does not have that luxury.  My major criticism of his candidacy has not been his "lack of experience" but that he has substituted the "audacity of hope" or "fervor for courage" or whatever it is for a rigorous, attention-grabbing denunciation of the policies that have left people in this country hopeless and afraid.  He gives me "every child should be healthy" when I want "the scandal of private health care that leaves 40+ million vulnerable is on its way out".

I am perfectly happy to know that Miss Sophia Winfrey, won't spend any time this camapaign season being kissed on by Republican democracy-killers, but if the new campaign slogan is to be O + O  for National Self-Help, I'm going to call Michelle Obama (cause she has good sense) and tell her just what I think.