The Hip Hop Anthropologist

   Unfortunately, many of the reactionary, knee-jerk comments i n the NY Times piece The Scourge of Racial Bias in New York State Prisons by Michael Schwirtz, Michael Winerip and Robert Gebeloff on December 3, 2016, r eflect why radical prison reform is practically impossible in this country; especially in the wake of the contentious 2016 presidential race as an administration - comprised predominantly of aggrieved white ethnics strikingly similar to the rural, isolated communities many of the guards and institutions are located - comes to national power.    Many of these same people would be outraged if the ignorant, racist guards (many who can barely read or write) treated an animal - e.g., pet, dog, cat, gerbil ex cetera - in the same despicable manner they treat these inmates (or other guards who happen to be black. Interestingly, I read no comments on systemic racism impacting black guards) with little or no oversight or accountability. ...

Let me apologize beforehand. Oh Lord, I’m sorry. I promised not to write another article critical of anyone. But like my arch-nemesis, Donald “The Don” John Trump, I cannot help myself. Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson is an irresponsible bumbler; a kinder, gentler Trump in his utter lack of curiosity about geopolitical affairs. The affairs, matters of war and peace, that an American president can expect to confront immediately after being elected and sworn into office. For the second time Johnson’s showed himself not to be a viable and, more troublingly, serious third-party candidate. Syndicated columnist David Shields said Johnson “set back the cause to legalize marijuana” in a tongue-in-cheek crack aired on the “Analysis of Mark Shields and David Brooks” segment of PBS’s “Newhour” this evening. MSNBC’s Mike Barnicle asked Johnson how he would handle Aleppo, Syria as president in an interview that aired on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Sep 8, 2016. Johnso...

  The problem with any claim that a Russian intelligence service operation gave the hitherto moribund Trump campaign a needed boost over the finish line is that without hard facts – e.g., empirical data, primary source material, or other evidence - the Far Right abetted by a complicit media, already hard at work normalizing an abnormal candidacy, will be able to dismiss the claim as sour grapes; unsubstantiated conspiracy theories; the rantings of the lunatic fringe, or unfairly cast Clinton as a sore loser.     In all likelihood, the evidence would be dismissed as unpersuasive by an indolent media that gave us Trump on a silver platter. Look how easily Trump was able to adroitly manipulate his "poorly educated" supporters by characterizing the fourth estate as "corrupt," "liars" ex cetera. Now Trump backers are subliminally programmed to disbelieve anything the mainstream media publishes with good reason. It was a masterful disinformation campaign b...

   There are many problematic aspects to reality television star Donald John Trump’s presidential campaign beyond pathological lying; invitation to foreign intelligence service to hack into an independent political party’s database; refusal to release income tax returns; bullying, inciting violence; birtherism, nativism, racism and sexism. But none have been more troubling than his call to reinstitute New York’s death penalty in the wake of the infamous Central Park Five jogger case.     The Central Park jogger case concerned the assault, rape, and sodomy of Trisha Meili, a female jogger, and attacks on others in New York City's Central Park, on April 19, 1989. We wrote about the case over a year ago. The “mainstream” media just this past week picked up the story with renewed vigor.    Trump took out full page ads full-page advertisements in all four major New York newspapers calling for the return of the death penalty recklessly and pre...