In The Price Paid for Blood on a Child, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/17/nyregion/17family.html Andrea Elliott utterly fails to raise either the race or class implications of the Bronx DA's office's continuing criminalization of parenting. Elliott, who seemed to believe that the whole thing was a big mistake failed to report, for example that the DA's office (whom she glowingly praised for eventually dropping the case,) had actually asked to have Carlene and Neville jailed!
I can tell you that the lawyers of the Bronx Defender's Family Defense Unit tried like hell to explain to Elliott that there was a bigger picture here--that poor black parents have their decisions second guessed by the criminal justice system in ways that would be unthinkable were they wealthy or white. Alas, that seems a point that even supposedly intrepid Bronx beat reporters just don't want to accept.
Below is the letter to the editor from Dave Jaros and Kara Finck:
The New York Times > Opinion > Bronx Child Abuse Case
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1 comment:
Unfortunately, the NYT wants money to read those articles, but gosh darn if not much has changed with the Bronx DA with respect to that issue. I remember handling a case there some years ago in which my client was charged with child endangerment for sleeping in the raw in his girlfriend's bedroom. It seems that the four year old wandered into the room while he slept and the DA thought the child would be endangered by a brief glimpse at his sleeping nake-tude. Utterly absurd and case dismissed, but still.........the very filing of the case was an insult to the entire household.
Keep up the good work y'all.
tmd
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