I was particularly interested in the article about Journalism and racial reckoning.  Just hearing the names of the reporters that they hired produced a very salient reaction fore me.  All I could think was how in modern times could we really think having one person covering a beat of an extensive magnitude is justice to anyone.  I know much comes back to Black Americans and the BLM Movement helped spark important change.  But there are many other important  and historically relevant cultures to particular areas a newsroom may cover.  Having one person from a particular minority community speak for all is offensive.  It was also disheartening the expectations some papers had for sometimes emerging departments.  The fact that some people were required to put out the same amount of work while having to start from scratch with contacts or turn out more stories to keep up with page views are insane.  I appreciated the belief that including diversity in all stories and subjects. The intention of diversity movements and reform is to get to the point where it is the standard and not atypical.  I liked that one writer was conscience of going to professors from historically black colleges and not just pwi professors.  Its little things that can go far in making real change.

I also was interested in the war tribunal and specifically Gary Bass’s book.  The more I think about them in the context of Nuremberg and Tokyo or even in the wars that are unfolding presently I feel very pessimistic.  I took a class about Environmental Policy and we discussed at length about how hard it is to incentivize country participation and also to hold those who were apart of treaties, parties, agreements, etc accountable.  I think much of what we talked about is relevant.  There are always economic incentives and disincentives that permeate how a countries held accountable.  It is a major reason why the US is never held accountable.  Also due to sovereignty over your own country there is no legitimacy in international processes unless nation give it that.  When it no longer fits their needs a country can choose to leave agreements which weakens legitimacy.  I think even as I am aware of the atrocities our country has committed.  I think its a foregone conclusion that no one will ever be tried and convicted in the international courts.  I think also on some level the western influence as we have been taught through our historical education is that we as the USA are the sole arbiters of justice.  We see injustice and we go in and stop it.  We can’t be convicted because we are the ones that convict.  Anything that is done is a means that justifies our hopeful ends.  While this is false and western centric view I think for so long the US has operated under this mentality for so long.  I think this is why Bass can point out the hypocrisy of our country but does not call for much further.  In many ways it is an accepted truth.