Easing multi-ethnic conflict by creating multi-ethnic alliances

Sam Smith – One of the great problems with the way that we approach ethnic discrimination is that we rarely discuss cures other than the condemnation of its examples. The media, for example, seldom discusses solutions. This approach is in full swing right now as can be seen in how little real police reform is …

A different kind of cop story

Sam Smith This is the first in an Undernews series on improving policing so we can have fewer disasters like the recent one in Minneapolis. The reaction to the murder there, as is typically true, was one of anger and condemnation. But the solutions get rarely discussed. Your editor has been involved with this issue …

The sit ins begin

Sam Smith - 55 years ago this month I covered sit ins in Arlington Va for WWDC News. In February 1960, four black college students had sat down at a white-only Woolworths lunch counter in Greensboro, NC. Within two weeks, there were sit-ins in fifteen cities in five southern states and within two months they …

Towards better policing

Sam Smith - Increasingly, views on social and political issues in our land seem driven more by anger and blame than by an attempt to find cures and reforms. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the current controversies over policing. This is not to say that anger and blame don't have an important role. …

The real issue behind gay marriage

  Sam Smith – The gay marriage case before the Supreme Court is not really about gay marriage as much as it is about something that isn’t being talked about much: freedom of religion. The Constitution calls upon the government to make no law "respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". …

Bringing law and order to the community

 From our overstocked archives Sam Smith, 1975 - We are staggering under the budgetary load created by the great expansion of the police, courts and prisons in recent years. We are not only paying a high price but we are getting little more with our money than we had before. The conventional wisdom is that …

Beyond the blame

Sam Smith Following the coverage of the SAE incident and the Ferguson situation I have been increasingly struck by how much time is being spent blaming someone and how little on moving towards a solution. To be sure there have been exceptions, such as Rev. Traci Blackman who told CNN last week: I was out …

Selma

Sam Smith When I finally went to see Selma, I was reminded of the American Indian who said of his tale, “Some of the facts may be wrong, but the story is true.” Certainly the depiction of the Selma march and the abuses by white Alabama officials that led up to it more than justifies …

A different cop story

Sam Smith – I first met Isaac Fulwood in 1967 when I did a feature for the Capitol East Gazette on neighborhood policing and went with Fulwood and his partner on their beat. The pair had been specifically assigned to deal with youth problems and community relations. Less than a year before the riots that …

Of hate crimes and traitors

Sam Smith - The recent killings in Kansas  City have revived talk of hate crimes. The problem with having a category of hate crimes is that there is no constitutional prohibition against hating, rotten as it may be. In fact, the right to be wrong is one of the most basic concepts behind our constitution. …

The road gets shorter

Sam Smith, 2006 - It is not easy to recognize fascism if you haven't been there before. Our eyesight is blurred by everything from cultural optimism to psychic denial. But news of the NSA's mass spying on American's phone records - in number of victims, at least, perhaps the most broadly illegal and unconstitutional act …

How much do we learn from evil?

Sam Smith 2005 The 60th anniversary observance of Auschwitz brings back a question that periodically lurks in the corner: how much do we really learn from evil? It is widely assumed in this country that humanity is significantly improved by such things as Holocaust studies, international war crimes, and showing teens scary films about driving. …

On the rights of juries

Sam Smith 1990 William Penn may have thought he had settled the matter. Arrested in 1670 for preaching Quakerism, Penn was brought to trial. Despite Penn's admitting the charge, four of the 12 jurors voted to acquit. The judge sent the four to jail "without meat, drink, fire and tobacco" for failing to find Penn …

Echoes of Wannsee

Sam Smith – While driving yesterday I happened to turn on a CSPAN program that discouraged me more about my country and its future than anything in recent times. It was a conference at the conservative American Enterprise Institute featuring three former CIA officials commenting on the movie “Zero Dark Thirty" a film that depicts …

The Attica that wasn’t

 Sam Smith Forty years ago this month, on September 13, 1971, 500 New York state troopers stormed Attica Correctional Facility on orders from Governor Nelson Rockefeller to end a four-day standoff following a prisoner revolt that included the taking of hostages. The police fired 2,200 bullets in nine minutes and before it was over 29 …