Open season on historians in Atlanta
The American Historians Association recently held their conference in Atlanta, at the Hilton and Marriott hotels, which are across the street from each other, and in the middle of the block. So the AHA members jaywalked, just as they did as students. The cops copped an attitude.
On Friday the Tufts historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto was arrested by Atlanta police as he crossed the middle of the street between the Hilton and Hyatt hotels. After being thrown on the ground and handcuffed, the former Oxford don was formally arrested, his hands cuffed behind his back. Several policemen pressed hard on his neck and chest, leaving the mild-mannered scholar, who's never gotten so much as a parking ticket, bruised and in pain. He was then taken to the city detention center along with other accused felons and thrown into a filthy jail cell filled with prisoners. He remained incarcerated for eight hours. Officials demanded bail of over a thousand dollars. To come up up with the money Fernandez-Armesto, the author of nineteen books, had to make an arrangement with a bail bondsman. In court even the prosecutors seemed embarrassed by the incident, which got out of hand when Fernandez-Armesto requested to see the policeman's identification (the policeman was wearing a bomber jacket; to Fernandez-Armesto, a foreigner unfamiliar with American culture, the officer did not look like an officer). The prosecutors asked the professor to plead nolo contendere. He refused, concerned that the stain on his record might put his green card status in jeopardy. Officials finally agreed to drop all charges. The judge expressed his approval. The professor says he has no plans to sue. But the AHA council is considering lodging a complaint with the city.
That's horrifying. But the story mysteriously continues:
The AHA is mainly very anti-war and that doesn’t sit well with many of the authoritarian types in the police in the deep South.
Now, if this is true as stated, i.e., if the AHA as an organization is anti-war (as opposed to the individuals of the AHA), there's something wrong here. A professional society should be dealing with its profession, not with politics. Granted, historians know more about war than almost anyone. But they don't and can't have a historical long view about current wars. And unlike the ALA and Cuban librarians (also arguably a political matter), they aren't dealing with the professional conditions of other librarians (the ALA isn't dealing, period, preferring to see Cuba's incarcerated librarians as "not librarians" because they don't have a MLS).
This is shameful. But given the tendency of academics to become court intellectuals and coutesans to power, this might wake a few of them up.
Tip o'hat to Claire Wolfe.
Comments
Posted by: James
Posted on: January 9, 2007 03:49 PM
This is very disturbing. We all have the right to ask a law enforcement officer for their badge/identification if they do not appear to look like a police officer. Was the officer's pride hurt when a fellow citizen questioned his actions?
As for labelling AHA as anti-war, could we please drop the misconceptions. If a group is considered to be anti-war, not all of its members are, and people should stop laying down first impressions.
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: January 9, 2007 04:05 PM
Was his pride hurt? Oh probably. It happens all the time.
As for the AHA, there was some really sloppy language on the part of that blogger. There's the possibility of generalization: "Most members of the AHA are anti-war", leading to collective guilt: "He's a member of AHA, so he must be anti-war." I read it as a personification though: "The AHA is anti-war." If a viewpoint is ascribed to an organization, it should only be because it is formal policy of the organization. As another example, it has been claimed that the NRA is a Republican organization. This is not because most of its members are Republican (though that is probably true) but because the NRA will endorse Republican anti-gun candidates when there are perfectly gun-friendly third-party candidates out there. It thus appears that it is official NRA policy to support Republicans.
Posted by: James
Posted on: January 9, 2007 05:29 PM
Being in a position of authority gives that thirst for power. Anyone trying to diminish it, the reaction is quite defensive. The person is not going after your job! Being so prideful leads to arrognance and someone will make a bloody mistake, and regret about it.
If you can get arrested severely for jaywalking, I guess stealing some lady's purse requires a couple of machine guns and some grenades.
Posted by: Jason
Posted on: January 9, 2007 09:04 PM
I think professional organizations routinely pass resolutions condemning this or that; the AHA, at this convention, did pass a resolution condemning the Iraq War and civil/human rights abuses (the full text of the resolution, along with an anti-speech-code resolution, can be found here).
Your concern about AHA's political interest was shared by members of the group:
"The text of the resolution was crafted to emphasize 'practices inimical to the values of the historical profession' in an attempt to win over the members worried that the organization might be accused of meddling in areas outside the usual purview of a professional society. But no one denied the resolution was frankly anti-war. And everybody who spoke, including those who opposed the resolution, made clear that they opposed the war..."
Also:
"The anti-war vote took place after a heated debate that lasted an hour. A motion to drop a clause urging historians to 'do whatever they can to bring the Iraq war to a speedy conclusion' was easily defeated. But the debate was vigorous."
(via History News Network's coverage of the event - check out the "Cliopatra" blog for more)
Good catch, though. I didn't even notice this story.
Posted by: jeffrey smith
Posted on: January 9, 2007 09:29 PM
You might be interested in the fate of the other two resolutions. (Quote from http://hnn.us/articles/33409.html#Day3, which was Jason's source)
"The meeting's tough line on Iraq was not matched by the action taken on the other two resolutions which came before the group. The members rejected a strong resolution opposing the use of university-approved speech codes. A compromise resolution narrowly written to oppose only free speech zones was unanimously approved. David Beito, one of the sponsors of the strong measure, gloomily told HNN afterward the passage of the compromise resolution against speech zones was a real defeat.
The meeting also rejected a resolution that would have required the AHA council to subscribe to the Informed Meetings Exchange (INMEX), which is closely associated with the pro-labor group behind the recent wave of hotel strikes. A second compromise resolution merely urged the council to consider subscribing to the service. "
In other words, long live political correctness, but we won't be so fashionably leftist as to actually support people who actually work for a living.
I would consider any howlings at the AHA (as opposed to howlings at Prof. F-A) in the starboardsphere to be justified fully.
(And you know if I say that, it's got to be really leftie!)
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: January 10, 2007 04:12 PM
Funny though, they didn't vote on the "first [anti-war resolution] in the AHA's existence" until after the prof was arrested. So much for the claim that the cops got him because of the politics of the AHA. I mean, do the police really need an excuse to be pricks? But certainly, by the panel and paper topics, one couldn't say that "disinterested scholarship" was the order of the day.
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: January 11, 2007 01:05 PM
We get the cop's side of the story here.
He still sounds like a power-crazed prick.
Posted by: James
Posted on: January 11, 2007 03:30 PM
Yea, he certainly wants to make sure he is a REAL police officer. =)
Now about the dispute of whether he was in his police uniform or wearing a bomber jacket that covered it, so the Brit prof did not know? Anyone have ideas that can clear that up?
Can we just eliminate jaywalking as a crime? :) I say, it's open season on pedestrians walking across the street.
Posted by: Jason
Posted on: January 11, 2007 04:19 PM
Keep an eye out - the scholarly org. I belong to is holding their conference in Atlanta this March. I don't suppose I could write in a line-item for "bail money" when I apply for funding, though, so I guess I'll be looking both ways.
Posted by: Historian
Posted on: January 14, 2007 04:43 PM
That's a very frightening story, but not even surprising to me anymore.