On August 2, 2012, I wore my James Baldwin t-shirt to celebrate his birthday. The back of this black shirt is emblazoned with Baldwin's face in gold print and this saying:
"The law is meant to be my servant and not my master, still less my torturer and my murderer." -- James Baldwin. The Nation. July 11, 1966.

This small act on my part to recognize a brilliant and marginalized radical intersected with two other coincidences of my life—completing Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy (popularly known in the U.S. as The Girl series, beginning with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and beginning Kathleen Nolan's ethnography on zero tolerance policies in urban schools, Police in the Hallways.
While the mesmerizing narrative of Larsson's novels, specifically the character Lisbeth Salander,