Margaret Davis, an avant-jazz promoter who heads the support campaign for jailed bassist Tarik Shah, has responded to my piece in Jazz Times [pdf] with an email to her subscriber list. In her missive she denounces my column and urges her recipients to respond to Jazz Times. She also includes my personal email address and invites people to contact me directly. So at this point I think it behooves me to respond to a number of Ms. Davis’s points.
First, she reproduces the listing found on the magazine’s cover: “David Adler on the Tarif Shaq Case” [sic]. You’ll note that Shah’s first and last names are misspelled. I can assure Ms. Davis that I was probably more appalled than her when I saw the mistakes. Although common sense alone would bear this out, I’ll just say that I have no editorial input on the cover of Jazz Times and thus I take no responsibility for it. Believe me when I say that the Jazz Times editorial team promptly heard from me about this ludicrous oversight.
Ms. Davis then states:
Writing about my Email calls to the jazz community for support, [Adler] states, “Very few turned up,” while two sentences before that he wrote, “The gallery was full of friends and relatives…”I have a few questions here: Who does Adler think those “friends and relatives” were? Is he able to recognize large numbers of Harlem musicians (or indeed any numbers of Harlem musicians) on sight? We’re not talking about Wynton Marsalis or John Zorn here.
I’ll remind readers that there are four defendants in the case. The gallery was full of supporters of each of the four defendants. When Mahmud Faruq Brent emerged from the holding cell, he drew the biggest response from the gallery by far. Of course there were musicians present, but I did not see them in large numbers. I did see many Muslim women in conservative dress, some with children in tow. I assumed they were not jazz musicians.
Additionally, is Adler aware that after the small section of spectator seats fills up, the courtroom is closed, and any other members of the public are turned away? And how can he say anything about the turn-out of supporters from the jazz community when he only attended one hearing?
Indeed, in the column I described the one hearing I attended. I made no empirical claims about any other hearings, or about the scope of Shah’s support in the jazz community. Sure, it’s possible that latecomers were kept out of the courtroom, but I did not see anyone milling about in the corridor when the hearing was adjourned.
Adler also wrote, “Urging us ‘to stand with Tarik Shah in solidarity as well as for freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion,’ Davis [that’s me] misconstrues the matter. Of course we should defend those freedoms, but strictly speaking, they’re not at issue in this case” Well, excuse me, but strictly speaking, yes, indeed they are.
Saying it doesn’t make it so. One does not have a First Amendment right to engage in criminal or terrorist conspiracies. That is the charge that is at issue. I have no idea whether Shah is guilty, and because Ms. Davis does not have access to the evidence, neither does she. So we must presume that Shah is innocent. That is where the matter stands, and nowhere in my column did I argue otherwise.
Adler also brushes off the fact that Tarik Shah has been held in solitary confinement for almost a year now without a trial and without sentencing and without any incident of misbehavior in prison and without any criminal record! Solitary confinement is intended as the most severe punishment for violent and incorrigible prisoners, yet this patently cruel and inhuman punishment doesn’t horrify David Adler. I wonder why.
Ms. Davis should refrain from putting words in my mouth. In my column I quoted attorney Edward David Wilford as follows: “[Wilford] argues that solitary confinement weakens the will of the defendants to participate in their trial and thus violates their Sixth Amendment rights. He has filed a motion to remedy the situation, noting that terrorism suspects who are deemed a ‘security risk’ before trial are typically transferred to the general prison population upon conviction.” I wouldn’t call this “brushing off” concerns about Shah’s detention. I found Wilford’s comment persuasive, and that is why I included it.
At press time it was not known that Shah’s trial would be set for October, many months from now. Nor was it known that Shah would be held in solitary until that time and for the duration. I agree that this is unacceptably harsh and I am on record saying so.
Worst of all is the first sentence of Adler’s closing paragraph: “One thing is certain: This is a poor way for a jazz bassist to make headlines.” I find that sentence and its implications inexcusable.
I can’t respond until Ms. Davis elaborates on what she believes are the implications of the sentence. [Update: A subsequent letter suggests that I was accusing Ms. Davis of trying to generate headlines or garner publicity. That is absolutely not what I was suggesting.]
To clear up any confusion, what I meant is this: It’s a shame that Shah is getting more attention from this case than he ever got as a player. Hardly a controversial sentiment, I would think.
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