Cleaner or MP? Lift operator or Judge?

Did you see the story about MP Dawn Butler?

She was the Labour MP for Brent South from 2005 to 2010, when the seat was abolished. But she stood in Brent Central in 2015 and has been an MP again since then. She told the BBC that she was recently told, while travelling in a members’ only lift in the House of Commons, that it “really isn’t for cleaners.”

Back in 2008, she told the Fawcett Society, which campaigns for equality, that she had been accosted by a former Minister in the members’ area of the House of Commons terrace. He challenged her right to be there, and when she assured him that she was a member, he replied “they’re letting anybody in these days.”

Does this all seem odd? It isn’t. Dawn Butler is, naturally, black.

Now it all makes sense, right?

Dawn Butler? MP or House of Commons cleaner?

This all puts me in mind of the first ever black justice on the US Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall. He was a man with a fine sense of humour – even his name has a colourful history: he was originally named Thoroughgood but decided, as a child, that it was too tiring to spell, so changed it to Thurgood.

One of his favourite stories of his tenure at the Supreme Court was being in a lift – sorry, elevator – when a couple of tourists climbed in. A black man in an elevator? Had to be the elevator operator.

“First floor, please” one of the tourists said.

“Yowsa, yowsa,” Marshall answered. And pressed the button.

It’s hard to avoid the feeling that organisations such as the Fawcett Society have a bit of way to go yet before we can claim that equality has been fully achieved.

I was irritated with the Oscars being so white this year, yet again. But maybe that doesn’t matter quite as much as I felt. It seems to me that it’s even more important to sort the problem of black MPs not being taken for cleaners in the British House of Commons, or black Associate Justices taken for elevator operators in the US Supreme Court building.

Thurgood Marshall. Not an elevator operator

Although there’s no reason not to make sure that black actors get the recognition they deserve at the same time...

Trump: what he got right in calling for a ban on Muslims

There’s something special about Donald Trump, isn’t there?

He’s now come up with yet another in his series of cunning plans to solve the world’s problems. This one is to ban all Muslims from entering the United States. That suggests that the entire world Muslim community, a billion strong, has to be suspected of being hostile to the United States. Would that include, I wonder, the ones serving in the US army and risking their lives to fight the nation’s enemies?

He has the right to put his life on the line in a US uniform but,
if Trump gets his way, not to return to the US

Godwin’s Law states that any internet discussion that goes on long enough will eventually lead to someone being compared to Hitler. I try to avoid falling into that trap. But it has to be said that the most striking example of such targeting of an entire faith community in the past has to be the Nazi hatred against the Jews. Trump previously recommended registering Muslims, just as Hitler registered Jews. He has now said that he doesn’t know whether he might have supported Roosevelt’s internment of Japanese – including Japanese Americans – during World War 2, so the magic word “internment” has now been put out there. 

A register. A ban. Possibly internment. Where will this end?

The curious thing about Trump is that he’s extremely keen on the US Constitution. Well, on bits of it. Does he perhaps have trouble reading the rest? For instance, he’s keen on the Second Amendment, though only on some of the words: “The right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed upon. Period,” he tells us, leaving out that annoying qualification at the beginning about “a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,” which somewhat limits the scope of the right.

Incidentally, there’s no “upon” at the end of the amendment. I guess if you’re quoting from memory…

Trump explains that the reason he’s keen on the amendment is that criminality in the US is rampant. He knows who to blame, too: “The Obama administration’s record on that is abysmal. Violent crime in cities like Baltimore, Chicago and many others is out of control.”

He presumably hasn’t managed to get as far as the tenth amendment: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” It’s odd, isn’t it? Usually right-wing politicians are really keen on limiting Federal powers, but it looks as though Trump would like to federalise law enforcement. Unfortunately – for him – the Constitution he likes so much doesn’t allow it. It does not assign that power to the Federal government so, as specified by the tenth amendment, it remains the responsibility of the states or the people. In Baltimore, for instance, the police Commissioner is nominated by the Mayor and confirmed by the Council.

Then again, Trump may not have noticed that Obama is President of the United States and not Mayor of Baltimore (or, indeed, Chicago though curiously that position is held by a former collaborator of Obama’s, Rahm Emmanuel. I mention only for amusement that Emmanuel is the model or Josh Lyman in The West Wing, a series which does appeal to the intellect as well as the emotions, so Trump may not have seen it).

But if Trump hasn’t managed to get from the second amendment to the tenth, it’s possible that he skipped over the first as well. Among other things, it denies Congress the power to prohibit the free exercise of religion. To avoid any kind of debate on technicalities, I should say that the Supreme Court has ruled that the provisions of the fourteenth amendment also mean that State governments can’t take action to prevent free religious practice either.

Most interestingly, in the case of Wisconsin v. Yoder, the Supreme Court extended the definition of “prohibition” in this context. It now includes any regulation which, though on the face of it neutral, “unduly burdens the free exercise of religion.” It may just be me, but I can’t help feeling that the practice of Islam is unduly burdened if the faithful are prevented from returning to the US if they ever go abroad.

Still, Trump may not have got as far as thinking through those implications yet. I offer up these musings to him, so that he can repair that omission as soon as possible. I can imagine just how urgent that task will seem to him.

By now you may be wondering why the title of this piece suggests that Trump may have got something right in his speech announcing the policy of banning Muslims. So I’d better explain. I was thinking of this passage:

“…people are fed up – they are fed up with incompetence, they are fed up with stupid leaders, they are fed up with stupid people.”

That struck me as true. I know a lot of us are fed up with stupid people trying to position themselves as leaders.

Sadly, however, on reflection I suspect Trump may be wrong on this score too. I suspect there are a lot of people out there who, far from being fed up with stupid leaders, are only too keen to rally behind one. I hope they’re not a majority, but who can tell?

I also suspect that Trump knows that. Indeed, he must be counting on it. After all, unless he believes that enough people want another stupid leader, why would he ever run for office?

Who said freedom was free?

Two lines in West Side Story have to be among the best in any musical:

Everything free in America
For a small fee in America

Smart insights, not just memorable songs

So acute, so witty. Though perhaps not entirely accurate: there’s nothing small about the fee. In fact, yesterday a Supreme Court judgement ensured that US freedom commanded an impressive price. Citizens can now enjoy the best freedom money can buy.

Not all citizens, of course. Only the ones who can afford it but, hey, that’s the way things are. Porsche and Dior aren’t available to just anyone, but I’m sure that the knowledge that some people can buy them has to be a comfort to everyone else. When you’re sleeping rough and scrabbling through restaurant bins, it must give you a little joy to know that some people at least can stay at the Hilton and dine out in the best places.

It’s the same with freedom. Ordinary citizens who can’t afford it for themselves should at least take pleasure in the fact that the upstanding individuals who can, are now entitled to buy as much as they want.

The Supreme Court decision means that, while the amount payable to any one candidate by any one individual remains limited, the aggregate amount they can contribute in any two-year election cycle has now been lifted. The man who brought the case, Shaun McCutcheon, is already close to the old limit, $123,200, small change to the people who want to buy themselves some essential freedom.

After all, it’s not a lot more than twice the median income in the US. Investing only the equivalent of two average people’s livelihood for a year might be regarded as small change in truly free circles. Practically the behaviour of a cheapskate.

But fortunately the fetters have been burst. From now on, men like McCutcheon can buy as much freedom as they want, or at least can afford. And will he take advantage of the opportunity?

“Oh, absolutely,” Huffington Post quoted him saying, “yeah, I'm well on the way to meeting [the old limits] already, so certainly I will now. Absolutely.”

A blow for freedom. People must be entitled to spend their money as they wish. And in a nation where lobbies and the super-wealthy had nothing like the influence on the political process that they would like, a great step forward has been taken in realising their ambitions.

The US Supreme Court that struck the blow for freedom.
Though only 5-4.
Against, back row: Sonia Sotomayor (left);
Stephen Bryer (second from left);Elena Kagan, (right)
Front row: Ruth Bader Ginsburg (right)
All the women were against