As activists and reporters entered the convention center, a security guard raised his hand and stopped everyone cold. “I don’t know where you guys are trying to go,” said the guard, “but I can’t let you guys go anywhere.”

A Providence police officer added that only “designated” people were allow to go up to the fifth floor where the press conference was taking place. It became quickly apparent that the activists and some reporters were not the “right kind of people” for the exclusive press conference.

Calls upstairs to the people in charge were useless. It didn’t matter to the convention center security guards or to the police officers that reporters and city residents were being denied access to a public meeting pertinent to their lives. What mattered, it seemed, was how one was dressed, who you knew, and how security perceived you.

People who were dressed in nice suits and ties, wearing nice clothes and carrying briefcases – or, let’s face it, white and upper class people – were allowed access. If you didn’t fit that bill, you were stopped in the lobby.

WPRO reporter Anita Baffoni was allowed upstairs with another woman who claimed she was a reporter, but RI Future’s Bob Plain was denied. Security claimed that the women had “credentials.” This is a matter in dispute.

Soon, people came downstairs from where the press conference was taking place and started approving some people and turning down others. Again, this was done either from familiarity, i.e. people in positions of authority recognizing each other, or through profiling along racial and class lines.

“It’s a private meeting,” said a man, who suddenly seemed in charge. “We’re trying to treat everyone like ladies and gentlemen,” he said. I countered that he was treating people like “second-class citizens” but he doubled down, saying that that “was absolutely not true.”

Some people were allowed to take the escalator without having so much as a single word or objection from security lobbied at them. These people were white and dressed nicely. For others it became necessary to storm past security and risk arrest if they wished to attend the press conference.

Convention center security eventually admitted that they couldn’t accost people. That didn’t stop them from threatening arrest. The Providence Police who were present were not arresting people, however, even when some activists made it all the way up to the fifth floor and began chanting outside the room where Paolino was holding court.

Is this the future for Kennedy Plaza? Access for some, as long as they look rich and white and have the right connections, while others become subject to ruthless regulations meant to keep us always on the edge of arrest?

Ordinances, such as “banning the distribution of anything to occupants of vehicles” are being proposed to the Providence City Council and being seriously considered. The ACLU’s Steve Brown calls this proposed ordinance “a direct attack on individuals who are struggling with homelessness or poverty and who seek to peacefully exercise their First Amendment rights to solicit donations.”

To his credit, Paolino said that restricting access to some reporters was inadvertent. He said he had no intention of preventing RI Future, the Providence Journal, RINPR and the Providence Business News from attending. But he did want to keep the activists and protesters away. He didn’t want his press conference disrupted.

When we hide our public meetings and press conferences behind security guards and police officers, restricting access to only the “right” people and the proper, embedded media, we set up a system that respects the rights of the rich over the rights of the poor. We set up a two tiered class system of the kind that lifts up some people by stepping on others.

Not unlike what some people would like to see in Kennedy Plaza.

“I couldn’t care less about that ass,” Malik said about Nugent.

When friends on Facebook noted the Ted Nugent connection, Malik took the photo down, even though he still stands by the meme, saying that the picture and the words make an important point.

The picture is accompanied by the words, “Would the suppressed millionaire, NFL quarterback, who would not stand for the National Anthem please point out which of these guys are black so we can remove the offensive flag.”

Malik says he did not see this meme as racist. To Malik the point was that, “you can’t tell who’s black or white beneath the flag. The [soldiers] should all be respected.”

The meme Malik re-posted was made in response to NFL player Colin Kaepernick.

When Kaepernick announced back in August that he was “not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” he started an important, spiraling conversation about race, police violence, the National Anthem and free speech.

Kaepernick was striving to make point about police killing people of color. “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way,” Kaepernick said. “There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

Malik maintains that not standing for the National Anthem disrespects our veterans and is a “disgrace.” Taking a knee, he said, “is a little bit better, but not good enough for me.”

The backlash against Kaepernick seems to have emboldened other NFL players to express solidarity, but so far no other players have chosen to remain seated. Instead, over the weekend four Miami Dolphins took a knee during the anthem, and two New England Patriots raised a fist.

“The way they are protesting the flag is a disgrace,” said Malik. “There are other ways to protest the killings of blacks – and whites – by police. Standing arm in arm is better, white and black together.”

Malik was referring to the Kansas City Chiefs and the Seattle Seahawks who locked arms in solidarity during the anthem.  The Seahawks said they wanted to “bring people together” while the Chiefs vowed to “work with local law enforcement officials and leaders to make an impact on the Kansas City Community.”

Football players like Kaepernick need to set the right example, says Malik. “They’re looked up to” by kids.

Malik says he understands the importance of free speech, but he takes not standing for the anthem personally, because he lost a friend last August in the war. “I really do think it’s wrong to not stand for the National Anthem. I believe that Black Lives Matter.”

Kaepernick “made his point,” said Malik, “We Americans don’t need anything else to divide us. We’re all Americans. We have to work together to make this world a better place.”

Malik, who serves as the chair of the House Veterans Affairs Committee is facing a challenge from Jason Knight in tomorrow’s primary. Knight served in the U.S. Navy from 1988 to 1996 as an enlisted nuclear power technician.

Two races of special importance to Speaker of the House Nicholas Mattiello are being influenced through mailers sent out by a not-so-mysterious group calling themselves “Progress RI” which is funded by the Rhode Island Brotherhood of Correctional Officers (RIBCO).

As can be seen in the screenshot below, Nicholas Mattiello has made contributions to both Jan Malik and David Coughlin. This is in itself not unusual. Both are loyal members of Mattiello’s base and both received contributions of $1000, the legal limit. Coughlin received contributions in excess of the legal limit, but the extra $500 was refunded, essentially a $500, interest free, three month loan.

Mattiello awarded Coughlin a second over-the-limit and later-refunded $500 campaign contribution/interest-free loan through his PAC, Fund for a Democratic Leadership, as seen below:

As Ted Nesi tweeted last evening, the Progress RI PAC, (a name that invokes the Rhode Island Progressives Democrats of America (RIPDA) though they have no affiliation), has reported spending $9,348 on mailers against five candidates, including Jason Knight who is challenging Jan Malik and David Norton who is challenging David Coughlin. All the money for Progress RI comes from RIBCO, to the tune of $9,500.

Richard Ferruccio is the president of RIBCO, and lobbies extensively at the State House on that union’s behalf, often arguing for tougher sentences and longer periods of incarceration for offenders and against legislation that might reduce sentences.

RIBCO is a strong supporter of Speaker Mattiello, as seen from this list of campaign contributions:

There seems an alignment of interests between Ferruccio and Mattiello. Both are working against Knight and Norton and for Malik and Coughlin. The ACI, where most of Ferruccio’s prison guard membership works, is in Mattiello’s district in Cranston.

Ferruccio generally opposes changes in the law that lead to early release of prisoners. Mattiello was singularly uninterested in passing Governor Gina Raimondo’s criminal justice reform package of bills, saying “The justice reform package was never a priority for the House. I was never convinced Rhode Island should be a test case for a national model on criminal justice.” Sam Bell suggested that the alignment of interests might be a “thank you” for “killing prison reform” though

Ferruccio did not respond to a phone message left at his office. Following Matt Jerzyk‘s advice on Twitter, I also reached out to Nick Horton at Open Doors, but was unable to connect.

This week on the Grim Wisdom podcast I sit down with Eliza Sher, a RI psychotherapist working in Providence. (Yes, I’ve had her on before, but this time we were drinking!) Topics include current events in RI politics, as always, but also the dark places in the human psyche and the stories we tell ourselves about who we are (and who creates those stories? and why?). Did I mention we were drinking? Enjoy!

Ultimately, the fault is with me, for not being more clear in my writing.

John DeSimone is a lawyer in private practice and he’s House Majority Leader in the RI General Assembly. When he crafts, shapes and votes on legislation, we trust that he will separate his two jobs in his mind. For instance, we trust that he will not allow the fact that he represents restaurant owners who engage in wage theft to shape the way he approaches restaurant and employment law. But in order for voters to be able to judge for themselves whether or not this is happening, they need to understand the kind of cases DeSimone is working on and what side he takes in these cases.

This is partly what I was trying to get at when I wrote about Leader DeSimone’s legal work for Chung Cho, owner of Gourmet Heaven, but there are other distictions to be drawn.

When GoLocalProv reporter and editor Kate Nagle read my piece, she was inspired. She attempted on Jason Knight, who is running in the Democratic primary against conservative Democrat Jan Malik in House District 57. (DeSimone, a conservative Democrat, is facing a challenge to his House seat from progressive Marcia Ranglin-Vassell, so the shape of the politics here becomes obvious.) Nagle wrote that Knight, “has represented DUIs, child pornographers, and sex offender clients since starting his own practice.”

Then she wrote, “The relevance of Knight’s practice and other attorneys running for office derives from a new focus on who candidates are representing in their practices. Last week, incumbent House Majority Leader John DeSimone came under fire for his representation of an accused wage-theft client. The criticism  came in part from RI Future‘s Steve Ahlquist, who wrote that voters ‘should know when the people we elect to represent us also defend the monsters who oppress us.’” [spelling corrected]

It’s nice to learn that GoLocal is learning about journalism from closely reading RI Future, but I think they might need a few more lessons. Nagle quotes me in the piece twice, without linking to my writing as I did for her above. (Here’s a handy guide to linking.)

“Voters should know when the people we elect to represent us also defend the monsters who oppress us,” I wrote, “Anybody being sued deserves legal representation, but using slick legal moves to avoid paying workers their earned wages is simply gross.”

Nagle also quoted my tweet about my story, in which I said, ”What attorneys do for their clients should be relevant to how voters perceive their ethical orientation.”

The tweet above was in answer to a criticism from Brandon Bell, director of the RI GOP. Bell tweeted, “As an attorney I am an advocate for client which does not equate with accepting or endorsing client’s alleged wrongdoing.”

In my retort to Bell I was making a subtle distinction. It’s not WHO you represent, it’s WHAT you do for them.

Jason Knight defined the role of a defense attorney very well when he was quoted by Nagle: “…in a criminal case, there’s a judge, a prosecutor and defender, and all three roles need to be done well for a just result. I need a fair judge, and a zealous prosecutor — and a defense attorney who basically keeps the prosecutor honest.”

In my piece about DeSimone, I wrote that DeSimone was not only defending Chung Cho on allegations of wage theft, he was actively helping Cho to sell his business in what the RI Center for Justice called “an attempt to evade liability.” I wrote:

“DeSimone filed Cho’s legal response to the Rhode Island lawsuit on May 11, 2015. About a week later, on May 20, 2015, Cho sold Gourmet Heaven to GSP Corp for half a million dollars. At least some of the transactional paperwork for this sale was prepared by DeSimone.”

This kind of slick legal maneuvering isn’t about keeping the prosecutors honest or achieving a fair trial, it’s about helping a boss to plead poverty and avoid paying workers who, absent wages, were essentially reduced to slavery conditions.

Rather than creating a list of people who committed terrible crimes and attaching them to DeSimone’s name, as Nagle did in her piece about Knight, I wrote a piece outlining the kind of legal maneuvers DeSimone engaged in to protect a wage thief from having to pay his employees.

Perhaps such legal maneuvering is perfectly legal. Perhaps it’s all in line with the professional ethics of being a lawyer. But is it right? And does it call into question DeSimone’s suitability for the elected position he holds?

I’ll let the voters decide.

More pertinent to the discussion at hand, is this what Nagle was attempting in her piece about Knight?

I’ll let the readers decide.

Last week, GoLocalProvidence published an article provocatively entitled: “New Benny’s Ad Features Convicted Murderer”. A more appropriate title would have been “New Benny’s Ad Features Criminal Justice Success Story”. Or “New Benny’s Ad Illustrates the Potential of Nonviolence”.

The controversy about the ad centered on the presence of Sal Montiero Jr., one of a dozen or so Rhode Islanders in the video. Montiero did a relatively long bid at the state prison for second degree murder. Many have objected to his appearance in the ad because of that record.

I teach college courses at the state prison, and I have students like Sal who spend their time while incarcerated getting an education, improving their self-understanding, and trying to equip themselves to be more effective and compassionate human beings once they are released into society. They are there because they have made mistakes, but almost without exception, the students that I have taught in the prison work very hard to become better versions of themselves.

This is no small task, even for those of us who are not incarcerated. It takes courage to face and atone for our mistakes, especially very serious ones that deeply affect the lives of others. Self-improvement is challenging, and getting an education is a long road.

Montiero, by all accounts, is an example of how we want our justice system to work, and an example of someone stepping into his full potential when given a second chance. He was released from prison, is holding down a job, and importantly, that job is teaching nonviolence through the Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence. He is trying to help others avoid making the mistake that he made, and teaching a practice that will benefit everyone. This is important work that our community needs desperately. He took the consequences mandated by the legal system, took advantages of the opportunities for self-improvement within the prison, and has been participating positively in the world since his release.

If our goal is to ultimately have safer, healthier communities that benefit everyone, then we would do well to celebrate, rather than shame, the success stories. Congratulations, Sal. Benny’s, I applaud your inclusivity. You have my business.

This from the second paragraph of the story ‘Bill would not end expansion’ on page A1 this morning (web version):

  And this is from the ProJo Editorial Board on June 18:

BVP was also used as an example in a June 9 editorial by the Providence Journal. A June 26 letter to the editor from former WPRO radio host Steve Kass, who also worked for Republican Don Carcieri, lauded and parroted the editorial’s focus on BVP.

The ProJo editorial board has a long history of using – and misusing – Blackstone Valley Prep to represent all charter schools in Rhode Island. Many Rhode Islanders, even some charter school supporters, think the Journal editorial writers are purposely deceiving their readers in an attempt to improve public perception of charter schools.

In the same editorial, the Providence Journal writes, “What sin did the academy commit, in the eyes of the legislature, that necessitated its loss of funds? It is not unionized. And it tried to focus its spending on serving the students rather than providing costly benefits to adults.”

Even the most ardent charter school supporters know there are more valid reasons than this to better regulate charter school expansion. Objectively, charter schools divert critical funding from the vast majority of public school students. The ProJo editorial board never mentions this more salient point. The all-white, conservative-leaning editorial board only seems to care about inner city students when charter schools are involved – and charters serve only 5 percent of overall public school students.

But don’t confuse that with a hyper focus on charter schools. The ProJo editorial board has had nothing to say on a recent scandal at BVP involving teachers sending disparaging emails about students. But when a teachers’ union official was found innocent of cyber-harassing a state legislator, the op-ed board still called for the official to be fired.

If the editorial board is banking on the fact that most readers don’t pay close enough attention to see the nuance behind its obstructive and often misleading editorials, it is committing a gross miscarriage of journalism. Thankfully, the news department seems to be fighting back.

GoLocal

What the headline means, says Curtis Pouliot-Alvarez, staff attorney at Rhode Island Center for Justice, is that, “they don’t consider these people human. Instead they’re calling them an illness and a scourge on society.

“The real problem is poverty and the systems that create poverty” said Pouliot-Alvarez, and that’s what needs to be changed.”

Pouliot-Alvarez was joined by Shannah Kurland, a community lawyer at PrYSM and several others in congregating outside the GoLocal offices and asking passersby for money, “to buy GoLocal a heart.”

No one gave any money while I was there, and GoLocal never left their basement offices to talk to the protesters.

Huckel explained, “This is not only a violation of her privacy, but, depending on her personal circumstances, could jeopardize her safety.”

The ProJo corrected this lapse of judgement and the story no longer contains the victim’s birth name, but the click-bait titling of the story, which refers to the woman as a “transgender prostitute” is also problematic.

The ProJo provides no corroboration that the woman was a prostitute. The headline reports that “police say” the woman is a prostitute, but such a claim is both unsubstantiated and irrelevant. As Ethan Huckel again explains, referring to the victim as a prostitute “shifts the focus of the report away from the attack and insinuates that [the victim] is somehow responsible. TGI Network of RI urges the media to use restraint and critical thought when reporting on this assault.”

As a reporter I know how tempting it is to go for the easy, click bait headline, but the victim of this crime deserves our compassion and respect. She should not be reduced to an object, gratifying our salacious curiosity.

As of Tuesday the police were still working to determine if the attack was a hate crime. In deference to the victim’s privacy we have chosen not to link to the original story.