Positive Sociology

Troy Davis was executed last night around 11pm EST.  I don't know the ins and outs of the Davis trial, but feel that there is significant doubt surrounding his guilt.  Different accounts have shown that 7 out of 9 key state witnesses have since recanted statements that were used to convict Davis.  Some accounts have said that witnesses felt coerced by police to sign bogus statements.  Others have implicated one of the other key witnesses--"Redd" Coles--as the person who actually killed off-duty police officer Mark MacPhail.    Troy Davis: Did the state have enough evidence to execute him? According to a NY Times article , Troy Davis maintained his innocence until the very end.  Moments before he was killed via lethal injection, Davis looked directly at MacPhail's family and said, " I did not personally kill your son, father, brother.  All I can ask is that you look deeper into this case so you really can finally see the truth."  Davis als...

Tupac: Revolutionary, Problem, or Neither? It's been 15 years since Tupac Shakur was killed in a drive-by shooting.  While perusing news websites, blogs, and my Facebook status feed, I began to think about a larger moral debate that often comes together around Tupac and other rappers. On one side, there are journalists and academics who are guilty of "Tupac worship."  I'm paraphrasing, but there are tons of journalistic and academic accounts that treat Tupac as if he were a "revolutionary" or "visionary" who changed the face of the music industry.  The more ambitious accounts like to argue that Tupac has forever changed the face of American culture. I'm uncomfortable with the revolutionary tag and feel that people throw around this term too casually and liberally.  I'm also ambivalent with the visionary label, particularly since I think it's hard to really assess how a single artist has impacted something as vast as the music in...

Recently, I've had some interesting conversations with friends and colleagues about the police.  One friend shared personal stories about being racially profiled by cops.  Two other friends described what it's like to live in a city that feels "under siege" by police officers; this is all on the heels of a string of incidents in which police officers have shot and killed young black and brown men riding public transit.  Unfortunately, it seems that these kinds of incidents are all too common, particularly in cities with large racial-ethnic minority populations.  Like my friends, I am also outraged by police brutality.  I've personally experienced and witnessed a number of incidents in which officers seemed to be using racial profiling to make traffic stops/arrests.  I've also collected data on numerous episodes of police brutality during my fieldwork in Los Angeles; these range from young black men getting "roughed up" and harassed by officers, to ...