Some people in our lives are like diapers. They need to be discarded from time-to-time and often for the same reason. But, even that description understates the case when it comes to describing some people at the A.C.L.U.

Last week inmates rioted in jails across Los Angeles County. Tensions between blacks and Hispanics were determined to be the cause of at least one death and over a hundred serious inmate injuries. So, Sheriff Lee Baca did just what anyone else with a lick of common sense would do. He directed his officers to separate blacks and Hispanics into different living quarters until the unrest could be brought under control. Make sense? Apparently not to some at the A.C.L.U. Even Baca expressed “concern” about their “concerns”. What is their problem, you ask? ... Apparently, their “concerns” center on their belief that separating prisoners on the basis of race, religion or national origin is unconstitutional.

Give me a break. I realize that sometimes A.C.L.U. attorneys appear in public disguised as responsible adults. So, we really can’t fault someone even as intelligent as Sheriff Baca for occasionally making the mistake of taking them seriously. But really -- in some cases the only appropriate response such lawyers deserve is -- “Hey you, out of the gene pool – NOW!!!” In light of last week’s violence, wasn’t the Baca’s well-intentioned segregation policy more likely to safeguard a far more important and fundamental constitutional right than an inmate’s right to be free from segregation? Namely, the right to be afforded a reasonably safe living environment (albeit segregated) where inmates could at least cling to a reasonable expectation that they would not be killed or maimed randomly solely on the basis of their race. I don’t know about you, but if I had to choose between these two constitutional rights and realized that being housed in a desegregated environment could get me killed, I think I would prefer the right to remain alive now so I could worry about things like integration later.

Please understand, I am NOT advocating sympathy for the KKK? Rather, I personally abhor both their organization and its beliefs. Nor am I in favor of returning to a segregated society. I think Brown vs. Board of Education was a good thing. I am only advocating that people use some common sense, which these days sometimes appears to be not all that common.

Regretfully, we find ourselves today confronted with the ugly fact that we live in a society that is increasingly rife with violent street gangs. For better or worse, it is also a fact that a common thread found throughout these many “social organizations” is that who is, or isn’t, allowed to become a member of any particular gang appears to be decided largely on the basis of race. And it most probably is also a fact that many, if not most, of the inmates who actually engaged in last week’s violence were members of one of such racially discriminatory gangs. Based on these facts, would not logic thus compel a reasonable person to conclude that the Sheriff’s decision was the only practical alternative available to him to effectively defuse a racial tension among the inmates that he had nothing to do with creating. Rather than attacking him for making this decision, it might be more fair, if not logical, to argue that the Sheriff’s need to segregate the jail population was made necessary by the A.C.L.U.’s failure to force street gangs to become racially integrated before the violence he had to deal with erupted.

Is this logic twisted? Perhaps, but before pronouncing judgment, contemplate this further exercise in twisted analysis. On a certain level, gangs are social organizations in some ways similar to many of the more acceptable mainstream “clubs” we are familiar with. They not only both organize social get-togethers, like dinners, dances or drive-bys, as the case may be, but also they both make available to their members’ access to economic opportunities they might not have otherwise. Why is it then that only the well-heeled clubs seem to be threatened with lawsuits by the A.C.L.U. if they discriminate on the basis of race, gender or religion? Could this dissimilar treatment be indicative of the existence of discrimination on the A.C.L.U.’s part? Why doesn’t the A.C.L.U. sue “clubs” like the Crips or the Mexican Mafia to desegregate their ranks? Could it be that the A.C.L.U. has assumed that nobody who’s not black would want to join the Crips or the Bloods, just as nobody who’s not Hispanic might want to apply for membership in the Mexican Mafia? If so, how condescendingly judgmental and discriminatory is that? Shame on the A.C.L.U.

Were all this true, doesn’t it also follow that, had the A.C.L.U. acted earlier to compel the racial integration of street gangs, it just might have encouraged the racial tolerance of individual gang members to a degree that last week’s crisis might have been averted entirely? And if this is true, shouldn’t we at least expect the A.C.L.U. to take appropriate action now to compel gangs like the Crips to integrate and thereby conceivably reduce the probabilities of racially based violence recurring in the future? Now, that’s something I would enjoy seeing the A.C.L.U. spend its time on. After all, is it not their stated purpose in life to see to it that the civil liberties of all are enforced equally, regardless of race, color or national origin? In fact, for them to do anything less in this situation would be hypocritical, would it not? While we’re waiting for them to act, however, don’t you think in the meantime it would be nice if they got off the Baca’s back at a time when he is busy trying to remedy a violent situation caused by racial tensions … particularly tensions he didn’t create?

© 2005 Clifford C. Nichols, Esq.

Cliff Nichols is an attorney practicing criminal defense/entertainment law in Santa Monica, California. He may be contacted regarding this editorial at either (310) 917-1083, cliff@cliffnicholslaw.com or www.cliffnicholslaw.com and you may join his blog at www.thedailystand.com