Willing to fight.

" 'Cause i know the biggest crime is just to throw up your hands/say "this has nothing to do with me, i just want to live as comfortably as i can"

So tonight I laughed at this dude in the bar who told me (Future Public Defender of America) and my friend (Future District Attorney of America), when I inquired as to the nature of his profession since he was so invested in questioning the ethics of me and my friend's respective future professions, that he was in real estate. Which in this day and age can only remind me of Frank Slaughtery (AKA Barry Pepper's character in '25th Hour'), who declares that Monty's (AKA Edward Norton) lifestyle came "from the misery of other people" (Monty being a drug dealer). I realize the comparison isn't a perfect one (I suppose our rich white boy interlocutor may profit in complete obliviousness to the misery of other people rather than precisely because of it), but in the age of the credit default swap and the subprime mortgage, there is something pretty hilarious about a real estate agent claiming to be the last honest man. When asked if he sells homes to people who can't afford them, he responds "That doesn't happen in New York, honey."

Point 1: The only dudes who aren't related to me who can get away with calling me "honey" are bodega guys. It's only the looming character and fitness portion of the bar examination process that keeps me from decking the next drunk-ass recent college grad who gets all pet-name-y with me.

Point 2: New York is, according to CNN, somewhere in the top 15 when it comes to high foreclosure rates. Check your stats before you wreck...yourself (apologies to Ice Cube).

I was glad bucko's only answer to "So what do you plan to do about the criminal justice system being racist?" (the system's racial disparities being his moral qualm with me and friend's desire to work in the criminal justice system) was "I'm going to make a lot of money so I can give some of it away." Because at least now I can have the comfort of knowing that instead of running for public office, dude will pretty soon switch his voter registration (if he even bothers to vote) to Republican, find a woman looking to get her M.R.S., and distract himself with secretary-banging, attempted modelizing, divorce court, and alimony. Because I have a distinct feeling that "I'm going to get rich and give a lot of money away" thing isn't going to pan out.

Someday, I'll be able to comfort clients and their families, guide them through the system, advocate on behalf of their interests, help them seek education and drug treatment, and convince a jury that they are innocent or deserve a lighter sentence. Someday my friend will be able to pursue lighter charges, help indigent crime victims obtain justice, and go after gang leaders who terrorize poor minority communities. And if you want to fix the racism in the criminal justice system --which I don't think you do, because I think you probably rather enjoy your white privilege (see, e.g. http://www.derailingfordummies.com/#false), what with it allowing you to get all savior-y on someone's ass)--you'd do better,i don't know, working to check your own white privilege? Working for an anti-racism organization? Going into a line of work that involves helping poor people? Doing anything besides sniping at a couple of (young, female-because don't try to tell me you'd pull this shit on a dude) law students in a bar, who, believe it or not, actually spend several hours a week thinking critically about these issues with the aid of some very smart professors? Because seriously, dude, I went to Berkeley-I majored in dismantling pseudo-liberal white boys. Especially when they try to "educate" me.