George Orwell is alleged to have said that some ideas are so stupid that only an intellectual could believe them. Let Dexter add a corollary to that. There are some ideas that are so insidious and socially destructive that only a lawyer could propose them.
Today's example comes from Oregon where a Portland attorney is arguing that 19th-century American slave-owning should allow his client a free pass for murdering his son. It seems that the evils inflicted on African-Americans in the distant past produces a "post-traumatic slave syndrome" among twenty-first century blacks which leads them to violent acts. Apparently Mr Isaac Cortez Bynum was such a victim of this syndrome that he was moved to leave 70 whip marks on the body of his 2-year-old son and then to break his ribs and neck.
Unsurprisingly the straight-faced lawyer proposing this theory is relying on the work of an intellectual, or at least someone who plays one at the Portland State University Graduate School of Social Work. Joy DeGruy-Leary, an assistant professor at that august institution, claims that because African Americans as a class never got a chance to heal from their servitude and "today still face racism, oppression and societal inequality", they suffer from multigenerational trauma.
Dr DeGruy-Leary reportedly has been working on this theory for 20 years but still has found no publisher for her research. As a public service, Dexter offers her this space to demonstrate the truth of her assertions.
Posted by Dexter at May 31, 2004 06:29 PM