Law in Contemporary Society

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NonaFarahnikSecondPaper 5 - 17 Apr 2010 - Main.JessicaCohen
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 The Grates, on the other hand, are up against the thick marble walls of Columbia’s John Jay and Alexander Hamilton buildings. They are home to between one and three homeless men (or their sack of belongings if they aren't around… at least some cop lets them have a twig in the bundle). The men like to sleep next to the grates for the same reason I slow my quick gait when I walk by them in cold winter evenings. They give off heat. When I walk by the homeless men I admonish myself, but not for being an uncultured passer-by. Sometimes I can ignore it by crossing the street. Sometimes I remind myself that I am in school to learn how to do something about it (I am in the homeless clinic for God's sake). But typically, I walk by and burn with the shame of a comfortable student who sees a man seeking sustenance off of the energy waste of a college dormitory. I feel shame at being a person who knows we have captured the power to create soaring edifices to our existence, while a man sleeps in the cold, on a cardboard mattress that falls in the shadow of God's fourth largest house in the entire world. I always walk home by myself, so I when I feel the shame and the absurdity and the irony, I feel it silently and alone.

After the NYU-CLS basketball game on Thursday night I joined a few students as they walked to the after-party, a little further down Amsterdam than my apartment. Journal applications were due at 5pm the next day, so as we left the gym and turned at the Alma Mater statue we started to talk about our editorial preferences. When we got to The Grates, I slowed down and interrupted a student to say that I feel shameful every time I pass the men who sleep there. Maybe I wanted to revel in the thing’s absurdity with someone else. Maybe I needed collective recognition of the “problem” and talk about its “solutions” to obviate a bit of my guilt. Maybe I needed both. Instead, there was a tiny beat in the conversation before the student continued, “Anyway, back to the Journal of Gender and Law.” Yea, I thought… Back to the Journal of Gender and Law. Maybe it's just my music.

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NONA - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqpngaWmw5A -JESSICA

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Revision 5r5 - 17 Apr 2010 - 17:38:37 - JessicaCohen
Revision 4r4 - 17 Apr 2010 - 07:14:57 - NonaFarahnik
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