A Mother's Death and Life

We all experience profound personal loss. The death of a loved one certainly qualifies as a hard cross to bear.  Rob recently lost his mother after a brief illness and a long life.  Here, he takes a moment to reflect on broader meanings of that life--JWW

Not long ago my mother died.  She was 99 years old.  My brother and I began preparing for the end sometime ago, so I’m not torn up about it.  Our family received lots of support from friends in the wake of her death.  I’ve felt embraced during a difficult time.  I’ve also been encouraged to express my feelings about larger issues I think my mother’s life raised, so this piece finds its rationale in sociology and politics.  Though she was mostly unknown, my mother’s life represented a loss for America.  I believe her time here illustrated part of the cost of race discrimination.  My view has little to do with the money she didn’t make or the fame she never had.

Electa Wiley was a teacher, scholar, and writer.  From the late 1940s to the early 1960s she taught her college major - home economics-  and she also taught English in rural, all-black schools in Arkansas.  She was good at that.  Really good.  My brother marveled at how, in retirement, former students so often stopped by our house in Hope, Arkansas or her cottage home on our family property near Nashville, Arkansas to say how she’d positively influenced their lives.  But teaching home economics and high school English, however valuable, wasn’t the highest and best use of Electa Wiley’s talents.

In the early 60s, she went to graduate school and earned a doctoral degree from the University of Arkansas, allowing her at least to ply her trade in historically black colleges.  She did that for 14 years in Arkansas and Louisiana.  However important that was, it still wasn’t the highest and best use of Electa Wiley’s talents. 

She retired to our house in Hope in 1978.  In the following years, I saw what Electa Wiley really could do.  She dedicated herself to writing, publishing volumes of poetry, appearing at literary conferences, and contributing newspaper columns on social and political issues.  I saw her passion, insight, and astounding ability to write in a way that touched hearts and stimulated minds.  But, I also saw the cost of the time she lost during those years toiling in little rural high schools, underfunded colleges, and, finally, her backyard.  I saw that, but for the timing of her birth, she would have had a chance to perform her craft in literary meccas like New York, Los Angeles, and London. 

What kept my mother from having the chance to write poems that became classics, novels that became best sellers, and screen plays that became film and television hits was, pure and simple, American race discrimination.  Born in 1919 in rural Hempstead County, Arkansas, she never dreamed of anything except teaching in a local school.  When she finished graduate school in 1964, the idea of a black woman landing on the faculty of one of America’s top public or private universities wasn’t, as she once told me, “a real possibility.”

I could look at this situation and regret missing out on the riches she might have earned in a lucrative literary career.  I could lament the fact my mother died in obscurity – appreciated by those who knew and loved her, but uncelebrated for talent exceeding many we worship.  I could complain that my mother never received the adulation of critics and audiences that venerated much lesser lights.  I do none of this because what happened isn’t about me, her, or our family.  I see the biggest loser in my mother’s fate as America itself.

This country missed out on what my mother had to offer.  I am convinced that had she not faced the racially imposed limits in place in the United States during her formative years, she would have had an opportunity to hone her craft with America’s best novelists, literary scholars, poets, and playwrights.  Her horizons wouldn’t have been constricted by considerations of what little black girls from rural Hempstead County, Arkansas can make of themselves. She could have dreamed big and shown the world what she had.

I understand my mother performed a valuable service.  The high school and college students she taught so well needed people like her.  Because she met their needs, she felt fulfilled and never regretted that fate didn’t deal her different cards.  As I’ve said in other contexts, being happy with what you have and not worrying about what you don’t have leads to really good outcomes in life.  My mother looked at things that way and, therefore, by the time of her death, she could say to herself, “Well done!”

But I wanted more for her.  I wanted her name in lights.  I wanted to see her on TV talk shows musing about books she authored and poems she composed.  I wanted her recognized on our greatest stages for people whose talent resides in using words.  I didn’t get to see that but, as I said, the fact I didn’t is as much America’s loss as mine.    

BLACK PANTHER: Significant and Entertaining

Except those who’ve been on another planet since its February 16 release in the United States, Americans are engaged in a cultural hullabaloo surrounding the movie Black Panther.  The picture, starring Chadwick Bozeman (Get on Up, 42, Draft Day), Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o (Twelve Years a Slave), and Michael B. Jordan (Creed, Fruitvale Station), set advance box office records for a February release and, by the end of the month, $763 million worldwide and counting, almost $422 million of it in the United States and Canada.

Much commentary about the movie focused on its sociological implications as a film with an overwhelmingly black cast, an African-American director (Ryan Coogler), and a story centered in the mythical African country of Wakanda.  As Time magazine’s cover story put it, “Rather than dodge complicated themes about race and identity, the film grapples head-on with the issues affecting modern day black life.”  That story noted that Black Panther “tackles another important genre,” the superhero film that deals with “issues of being of African descent.”  

The movie strongly appealed to African-Americans and drew critical acclaim because it showed black characters in roles depicting various human dimensions.  It received broad praise as a movie that matters, partly because, as the Time story concluded, “[its lead character] is our best chance for people of every color to see a black hero.” Indeed, whites flocked to the movie, just like blacks, helping it set those box office marks.

We asked ourselves why the movie resonated so well.  We offer three reasons reflecting what we suspect attracted different swaths of moviegoers.

Henry writes:

I confess to being a superhero guy.  I started reading superhero

comics as a kid and kept reading them into adulthood (bet my judicial colleagues didn’t know that!).  Superhero movies come naturally to me.  But this one was different.  For one of the few times, the superhero looked like me and for the first time, almost all the supporting cast did too.  As that Time story noted, “Those of us who are not white have considerably more trouble not only finding representation of ourselves in mass media and other arenas of public life, but also finding representation that indicates our humanity is multifaceted.”

I found immensely satisfying seeing a movie, in a genre in which I’ve reveled so long, depict a world that left no question of my own humanity and celebrated the notion people of African descent can be, and are, good or bad, human or inhuman, smart or not-so-smart, wise or unwise, compassionate or cruel.  Black Panther brought alive my own spirit and helped maintain a faith in humanity that’s been challenged the last few years.

Woodson says:

We could write volumes about how people of African descent have been negatively depicted in film, television, theater, and literature. This depressing trend in American mass media has dismayed African Americans.  The Obama Presidency gave African Americans a sense of vindication that they were the equal of whites, when given the same opportunities.  Black Panther may well show this disgust resides in places other than the African American community.  The general acceptance of, and interest in, the film could demonstrate that significant numbers of white Americans also desire seeing people of color depicted in ways that don’t insult and offend. Many of them also pulled for Barak and Michelle Obama.  They too wanted to take race off the table. In the age of Trump, it’s been put back on the table, to the disappointment of African Americans and those same whites.  I’m convinced Black Panther gives both groups hope for leveling the playing field.  The film satisfies that thirst, at least for an evening.  

By offering a black world brimming with confidence and competence, yet not excessively idealized, Black Panther gives white America a vision of a world different from that espoused by a President who reportedly dismissed the 54 nations of Africa as “shit-hole countries.”  Many white Americans know that’s not real; in fact, it’s demonstrably false.  Barak Obama, after all, was Kenyan and American.  By seeing Black Panther, it’s possible they voted with their feet – and their movie money – against a regime of racial isolation in which all black people lack competence, courage, or humanity.       

   

Rob observes:

I get the sociological stuff.  There haven’t been many movies presenting black people in such a positive light or exploring the themes this movie does so compellingly.  That’s not, however, why I found it a pleasant way to spend a Saturday afternoon between basketball games and work.  It’s just a good film with a great story line, excellent cinematography, solid acting, and riveting action.   

The movie reminded me of my favorite long running, multi-episode

film franchises: James Bond and Star Wars.  I’ve seen every one ever made, including the Star Wars prequels (Episodes I, II, and III) so many don’t like admitting they saw.  Black Panther struck me as 007 meets Luke Skywalker, Auric Goldfinger channels

Emperor Palpatine.  Black Panther came complete with a black female “Q” (Shuri, played by Letita Wright), gadgets and all, a white American CIA agent (isn’t Everett K. Ross really Felix Leiter?), and a battle between warriors about to get pushed into the abyss (Obi-wan Kenobi v. Anakin Skywalker in Revenge of the Sith).  I didn’t see the Bond or Star Wars movies for a sociological message.  I saw them for entertainment, just what I got with Black Panther.

What did you think of Black Panther?              

               

NO, YOU DON’T HAVE A CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO A BAZOOKA

Students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida grabbed the nation’s attention last week by taking their campaign for gun law reform to the state capitol in Tallahassee and to Washington.  Their anguished, yet reasoned cries for change followed the Valentine’s Day massacre of 17 people at the school by a 19-year-old former student who tipped off his intentions, yet still legally purchased the AR-15 assault rifle and high capacity magazines he used in the attack.  Well articulated arguments by the students, combined with obvious pain, made many in the pundit class say this protest felt different from others heard in the wake of mass shootings.

One thing was different.  In town hall meetings in Florida, the students and their supporters put politicians on the hot seat, most of them Republicans like Florida Senator Marco Rubio who accept money from the National Rifle Association and do its legislative bidding.  Protesters made clear they plan to stay active and will vote against those who don’t help them make guns harder to get.  Time will tell if they live up to that pledge but, for now, the students seemed to us to occupy both the moral and political high ground.

Basics

The student protests exposed fundamental misunderstandings many Americans hold about gun rights in this country.  The phrase “Second Amendment rights” gets tossed around in a way suggesting existence of an unfettered right of individual citizens to own any gun they want for any purpose.  It has become shorthand for everything the NRA wants – the main thing being that more guns represent the best solution to any gun problem. Even the current, rightward -leaning United States Supreme Court hasn’t gone that far.

Until the Supreme Court decided District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008 and McDonald v. City of Chicago in 2010, both by 5-4 margins, it wasn’t clear the Second Amendment, which states “[a] well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear

arms, shall not be infringed,” granted any right of individual gun ownership.  The amendment’s convoluted phrasing could mean individuals can own guns only in connection with military service or law enforcement.  Heller and McDonald rejected that idea, but did so in a way not consistent with the broad interpretations guns rights advocates throw around in public debate.

Those two cases established an individual right to keep and bear arms for what the court called “traditional” purposes like self-defense.  Local governments in Heller and McDonald enacted bans on handguns; the District of Columbia, in Heller, also required that owners of rifles and shot guns keep them unloaded and disabled in homes.  The Supreme Court concluded such restrictions excessively burden the right to keep guns for self-defense, a “traditional” purpose the founders had in mind in enacting the Second Amendment.  The court also said, however, it wasn’t approving unlimited gun rights.  Government could still prohibit concealed weapons, prevent mentally ill persons and felons from buying guns, and keep guns out of places like government buildings and airports. 

In murky language that didn’t affect the outcome in Heller (lawyers call such musings dicta), the court suggested, but did not decide, that government can regulate military weapons like machine guns.  Lower court cases since Heller, none of which the High Nine has taken up, seem to confirm the view that the judicial branch won’t let everyone have military-style guns.  Imposing limits, therefore, on automatic weapons and high capacity magazines wouldn’t trample anyone’s “Second Amendment rights.”

Only so far

Recently, the Supreme Court let stand a lower court ruling upholding California’s ten-day waiting period on gun purchases, even for people already legally owning guns.  The court’s refusal to hear the case drew a stinging retort from Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote a 14 page dissent, complaining that “the Second Amendment is a disfavored right in this Court.”  He speculated that if California had infringed “favored rights” like abortion, speech, or search and seizure limits the court would have acted.  Leaving aside flaws we as lawyers might find in Justice Thomas’s legal reasoning, his complaints about the high court’s unwillingness to wade back into the Second Amendment debate indicates the court would defer to legislative limits on destructive weapons, permitting states and the federal government to take action on issues the Florida students have been pushing.

All of us have joked – though it’s really not a joking matter – that some people think they’re entitled to brandish a bazooka, or maybe even drive a tank to work, in exercising their “Second Amendment rights.”  The NRA has never, to our knowledge, recognized that the Second Amendment doesn’t go that far.  What it has done is always push the envelope in claiming broader, more expansive gun rights.  We assume gun rights stop somewhere, but the NRA never says where that is.  In the last week or so, the Florida students have been in the business of drawing the line on where gun rights stop.  Their line makes a lot more sense to us right now.  What do you think?