Cyril Lionel Robert James was born in the British colony of Trinidad on January 4, 1901. James was a bright youth who absorbed literature, history, music, sports, and art-the foundational texts of Western civilization. He attended Queen’s Royal College in Port of Spain, but chafed at the rigid disciplinarianism of the educational British system. Yet he was deeply interested in and influenced by the game of cricket introduced by the British and became a local cricket reporter before turning to fiction. James wrote several early works of fiction in Trinidad before sailing for England in 1932 at the age of 31. While in England, James spent a great deal of time focusing his writing on issues relevant to the expatriate West Indian community. He published The Case for West Indian Self-Government in 1933.
James was increasingly exposed to social issues and turned to the writings of many Communist thinkers in this period. He became a major Trotskyist thinker as well as an ardent critic of fascism. He produced a play, Toussaint L’Ouverture, with Paul Robeson in the lead role which reflected his political leanings. James was becoming more interested in revolution and social liberation as well as questions of race. He published his landmark work, The Black Jacobins, in 1938, offering a Trotskyist analysis of the 1791 slave revolution in Haiti. James and his fellow Trotskyites remained opposed to Stalinism and offered virulent critiques of the system throughout the 1930s.
C.L.R. James arrived in the United States in 1938 and remained for the next twenty years. While in the U.S., he began to have doubts about the Trotskyist analysis of the Soviet Union and argued for a liberation of Marxism through a bottom-up emphasis. He also studied Whitman and Melville in this period. James returned to England in 1953 and five years later went back to his native Trinidad where he became involved in politics and the decolonization movement. James published Beyond a Boundary in 1963, a memoir and social commentary, that explored the place of cricket in West Indian and British society and its role in empire, family, masculinity, race, class, national culture, colonization, and decolonization. The work is widely viewed by critics as one of the best sports books ever written.
After 1960 James traveled widely throughout Africa and the Caribbean and was interested in the role of culture across boundaries. As a West Indian deeply-infused with Western culture, he sought to carve out a space of independence while still maintaining his love for what he saw as a series of cross-national ideals. He taught at the University of the District of Columbia starting in 1968 and wrote a series of works on culture, politics, radicalism, and revolution. James passed away on May 19, 1989 in London, England, on the brink of the collapse of the Soviet Union. He was survived by his widow Selma.
"When history is written as it ought to be written, it is the moderation and long patience of the masses at which men will wonder, not their ferocity."
- CLR James
C.L.R. James: A Revolutionary Vision for the 20th Century
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My partner got called for jury duty a couple months ago and what a fucking farce. She was there for 10 hours, no lunch provided, only a 30 minute break to go get food in an area with nothing available, and at the end she was dismissed for something incredibly obvious that they should’ve put on a form in the mail to not waste everyone’s time.
cw: SA
She was harassed by a cop after being sexually assaulted so will never listen to a cop and will have a breakdown if she has to listen to stuff about sexual assault, which was the case in question. No lawyer would ever put her on a jury and it could’ve been known by putting a checkbox on a form.
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Honestly on the list of problems with our legal system jury selection is probably pretty low on the list but Jesus fucking Christ they need to redesign that system from the ground up and it should be done exclusively by people who’ve been on the jury side of that situation with no input from the selectors.
Also getting these people to understand what the phrase “Beyond a reasonable doubt” meant was fucking impossible and their inability to understand it should’ve disqualified them from the jury in the first place. It’s not a difficult concept and if you can’t hold it in your head I really don’t want you deciding if people are guilty.
Also also why the hell don’t courthouses have cafeterias and kitchen staff you have hundreds of people coming in and out for long periods every day that’s a very basic thing you should have.
Acab includes judges. This would be good.
dats gommulism, pinko
I feel like there should be a way to do jury selection long before they even know what you’ll be jurying, doing individual interviews instead of the absolutely insane group thing they currently do. Interview to certify their ability to jury, few months later “You’ll be jurying in 2 weeks on Tuesday, you’ll be paid $30 an hour for your time”
Yeah, it would be almost impossible to not design a better system than ours. Just random chance design elements would work better
Yeah, I find it especially troubling that if you have experienced a crime they don't want you on a jury. I used to work on the ambulance and I was DQed for knowing too much about how the police work I guess. Which is highly suspicious
Eh, I don’t want people who’ve experienced a crime being on juries. If I’m accused of burglary I don’t want someone on the jury thinking about the time their house was robbed.
The one that bothers me is that they don’t want people who’ve had bad experiences with cops on juries. I exclusively want people who’ve had bad experiences with cops on juries.
That would mean you are selecting to exclude vulnerable people from the process. Women, PoC, the poor, neurodiverse. All are more likely to be victims of crime. So if that is the line you are selecting for whiter richer people to be judging folks. Which is kinda what we got now.