About Your Banging Blacklist: An Open Letter to the Civitas Institute

[octoberlib]

Dear Civitas Institute,

Thanks for including me in your Moral Monday Protesters database. I'm sure I speak for many of those arrested for civil disobedience protesting North Carolina's Tea Party legislature who are happy to find our name, residence, and employer are usefully listed on the Internet.

I'd like to thank your funder, Art Pope, for making this project possible and giving it that personal touch. Linking to our mug shots is a nice detail; otherwise, your readers might not be able to recognize us on the street. Also, it has that great Rogues' Gallery effect. I mean, everyone looks like a criminal in a mug shot.

You really enrich the picture by listing arrestees' "interest-group affiliations," such as NAACP, People of Faith Against the Death Penalty, and, of course, Occupy Raleigh. But maybe the best grace note is the column devoted to noting everyone whose driver's license address doesn't match their voter registration address. Could that mean rampant voter fraud? You report, we decide.

Maybe it's just because I teach Constitutional Law, so I randomly know all these little Americana details, but this whole project is a really nice allusion to those laws Southern states passed in the 1950s, requiring certain groups, which just happened to be the NAACP and other civil-rights organizations, to disclose their membership. You know, so that employers and neighbors could be informed, make their views known to the troublemakers

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jedediah-purdy/about-your-banging-blackl_b_3471691.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

[Hissyspit]

1. It's a despicable thing.

Last edited Fri Jun 21, 2013, 06:18 AM - Edit history (1)

And they know it.

http://www.southernstudies.org/2013/06/art-pope-funded-group-launches-database-targeting-.html

[octoberlib]

2. I just sent links to Melissa Harris Parry and Think Progress.

They've been reporting on the protests. This is unbelievable. Despicable is the perfect word for it.

[octoberlib]

8. Thanks for the link! nt

[msongs]

3. contact that other famous teacher of consitutional law. oh wait, there's a pot smoker to bust nt

[octoberlib]

4. Or a whistle-blower to prosecute. nt

[n2doc]

7. He looks forward, not back, don't you know? n/t

[melm00se]

5. Believe it or not

there is a small piece of useful information in this data.

The right, specifically Governor McCrory (here and here), has been claiming that many of the protestors are "outsiders", yet the data does not support that.

The slide entitled "Protestors by Reported County" shows that only 2% of the arrested protestors are from outside of NC (8 of the 382 arrested indicate an out of state address).

[gklagan]

6. Local events?

I would like to attend an event in my local community to hear the people on this list talk about their experience and reasons for participating. Is anyone putting things like that together?

On the one hand this is low down to make your interns grind out that kind of data entry. On the other hand open-sourcing an organizing tool like this is kinda useful for local organizers.... so thanks for that?

Link to list: http://www.nccivitas.org/moralmonday/