Tag: Dignity

No wonder our politics are so polarized: We all feel we're being dissed, and we take it very personally. In an interview from his Stanford University office on Monday, he discussed this increasing fragmentation, how it showed itself in the recent controversy over now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and how we could get to a shared identity as Americans. How you interpreted them depended upon your identity, and, increasingly, our identity is defined in partisan terms. If the court tries to dismantle what people consider settled law in a dramatic fashion, it's going to produce a very big political controversy, in a way that will threaten the court's legitimacy. I recently spoke to a political scientist who argued the next Democratic president who has a Democratic Senate should immediately expand the Supreme Court from nine to 11 seats. Do we need to make some fundamental changes in how we elect our president and representatives? There's a significant possibility that the Republicans will continue to hold onto the presidency, as the Democrats keep winning the popular vote. There are a lot of people who have a legitimate claim to not being adequately recognized. I make the point in my book that the Constitution doesn't define who the "American people" are. If you had a leader who didn't want to opportunistically divide people on identity grounds, but rather spoke up in favor of a broader identity, that would do a lot to reverse these current trends.

Kigali, Rwanda - Bayingana Mark is trying on a crisp white shirt at the Biryogo market in Kigali's Nyariambo district, known for its small-scale traders selling second-hand clothes from all over the world. Mark, a trader and head of Biryogo market, tells Al Jazeera that the lull is due to a government-imposed tax on imported second-hand clothes last year. Those supportive of the Rwandan government's bullish ambition to develop local manufacturing see the decision as a boon for their trade. At least 20 percent of all used clothes in Rwanda are imported from the US. Opportunity for tailors Mukanyarwi Serafina cuts through a section of Kitenge cloth in her small tailor shop in the town of Nyamagambe in southern Rwanda. He says it was only a matter of time before everyone got used to the change. "It is a big opportunity for tailors," the 38-year-old says. While Jacque understands the demand for self-respect, he says the economy does not run on "dignity". Hundreds of workers cut fabric, check labels, operate sewing machines, and carefully monitor the "Made in Rwanda" products for quality. Originally starting out as an export-oriented manufacturing plant, mostly for clients in the US and Europe, this Chinese-owned factory has moved into producing garments for the local market.

I was underneath one of them while the two laughed, two friends having a really good time with one another.”) Conversely, Brett Kavanaugh and his defenders, most prominently Senator Lindsey Graham, cast Ford’s accusation and the hearing itself as an attack on Kavanaugh’s dignity: the shouting, hectoring, crying, and Graham’s explicit refusal even to consider the subject of the hearing communicated that they saw any challenge as an offense. For the rest of us, the spectacle of the hearing, and the vote that followed, became a death watch for dignity in politics. I have written about the concept of the “feminization of politics,” which foregrounds restoring dignity to those who are not often heard: women, poor people, black and brown people, disabled people, and many others. Seemingly out of nowhere, there appeared the performance of respect for the law, for the intellectual rigor of interpreting the law, and for procedure. But as Russia deteriorated, so did the public performance of politics, including in the courts. That underscores the interplay of the two kinds of political dignity: the dignity of participation and the dignity of performance. What we witnessed yesterday was the deliberate refusal to perform dignity. Every single one of them demonstrated, through their sympathetic questioning of Kavanaugh, that they were not in the least swayed by Ford’s credible and moving testimony. However, if the rest of the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee had had their druthers, Ford’s story would be told, but it would not be heard—at least not in the United States Senate. They would deny her, and the millions of women and men outside the Senate who did hear her, the dignity of participation.