first, I don't consider myself an expert about anything...second, I've watched programs, in fact, I was think of a 1994 episode of *Law & Order* in which the prosecuting attorney was a white woman and the judge a Latino - about a woman claiming justifiable homicide suspected of misusing battered women's defense...third, I have paid attention and I know that racism - and its denial - has been addressed intlligently (and, in fact, said as much in a previous post to this thread)...fourth, my violence comment was about cinema and was response to someone's comment about number of cop shows, I wasn't referring to any specific shows, in fact, I wasn't making a comment about tv at all (although I was suggesting one possible/plausible reason), and violence, of course, involves more than shooting guns...
in my view, shows under 'discussion' do not interrogate and challenge ideology of 'law and order' itself because US commercial tv will not allow it (some 'contested terrain' can exist as my previous post to this thread about ambiguity suggested)...that after all is said and done (through a series of fragmented episodes), such shows are about recuperation... Michael Hoover
btw: actor's name is Michael Moriarty...he was in film adaptation of Robert Stone's _Dog Soldiers_ (entitled *Who'll Stop the Rain?*) ...Nick Nolte's character in that movie was modelled after Neal Cassidy who was Dean Moriarty in Kerouac's _On The Road_ and Kerouac used to live in a house just a few blocks from where I live (before the area became Dislando) and there is a local project going on to make purchase the place he lived in and allow aspiring writers to take up six months 'residency' there...hey, this deconstruction stuff is fun...