police – The R.oB. Opinion

One Time

Just about all of my black male friends know what this kind of racial attack is from personal experience. I am no exception.

Young, Black and Frisked by the N.Y.P.D. – NYTimes.com:

For young people in my neighborhood, getting stopped and frisked is a rite of passage. We expect the police to jump us at any moment. We know the rules: don’t run and don’t try to explain, because speaking up for yourself might get you arrested or worse. And we all feel the same way — degraded, harassed, violated and criminalized because we’re black or Latino. Have I been stopped more than the average young black person? I don’t know, but I look like a zillion other people on the street. And we’re all just trying to live our lives.

(Via Ta-Nehisi Coates :: The Atlantic)

Just about all of my black male friends know what this kind of racial attack is from personal experience. I am no exception.

New York’s Foulest

The Gang in Blue.

New York’s Foulest:

It’s very difficult for us to grasp the notion that cops are human beings, subject to the same racial biases and flaws of other human beings. This is not a plea for mercy on their behalf. It’s a plea for understanding that abuse will happen. A gun and a badge do not confer a “great soul.”

(Via Ta-Nehisi Coates :: The Atlantic)

Amen. If they didn’t try to squeeze over two million people on a road that can safely handle half that, we would have most of the real issues in the first place.

Thugs aren’t Revolutionaries

On the other hand… – Ta-Nehisi Coates:

“Beyond that, my Pops published a book a few years back looking at the legacy of the Black Panther Party. He was really proud, given that he’d been a Panther. Though largely sympathetic, and maybe slightly nostalgic, the book is not a piece of hagiography. In one of the more trenchant essays, the author points out the folly of equating thugs with revolutionaries, of essentially criminalizing the vanguard.”

(Via Ta-Nehisi Coates.)

This is what you get when you do.