I’m going to present a scenario. I want you decide who if anybody is right. And who if anybody should be criminally charged. But you have make a decision before you hear about the race of the people involved. Just imagine that everybody is white. A guy lives in northwest Albuquerque. He may may not have been wondering around his…
Tag: race
Five charts Ray Kelly Doesn’t want you to see!
(Can you guess I was just on buzzfeed? A better headline would be “Murders way down in NYC. And so are stop and frisks. And nobody seems to care.” But what kind of clickbaite would that be?) 1) Breakdown of NYC stops by race. Indeed, as often reported, 83% of stops have happened to black and hispanic people. 2) Breakdown…
Sorry about the shooting, Brian, but it’s not profiling if it’s the totality of the circumstances
A few posts ago I linked to nice article by Brian Beutler. He explains very well how he didn’t succumb to the “ecological fallacy” (of assuming what is true for the individual is true for the group, or vice versa) even after being held up and shot. I particularly like the line, “Everyone who’s ever shot me was black and…
Stop & Frisk: They Had It Coming
A (cop) friend in Baltimore asked me with regard to stop and frisk: “What the hell is going on?” I emailed back: You know, leaving aside the decision was entirely predicable based on the judge not exactly being a friend of police, her decision is actually kind of mild. All she f*cking asks is for cops to stop making illegal…
Worth Reading
Ta-Nehisi Coates on Stop and Frisk. It’s also well worth scrolling down to read his posts on Trayvon Martin and Zimmerman. Coates is one of the main reasons I haven’t written very much on the subject (another being I was on the road). Coates wrote what I was thinking. And he wrote it very well.
Zimmerman Trial (2): Justice vs. Stand Your Ground
I received this interesting and thought-provoking email from my friend Alan (bold added): It seems to me that if Zimmerman is convicted of a felony, then the Florida laws are apparently defensible. Sure, a guy is allowed to shoot someone in certain circumstances; in this case such circumstances did not present and so he’s going to jail. The laws did…
Zimmerman Trial (1)
Prof. Carl Hart on modern reefer madness: Harry J. Anslinger, commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (predecessor of the Drug Enforcement Administration) declared, “Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.” Seven decades and hundreds of studies later, we no longer have an excuse for indulging the myth of “reefer madness.” It has no place in…
Give Peace a Chance
“The years between 2000 and 2010 do not simply constitute a war on marijuana, but a war on black people who use marijuana.” Well said, Ta-Nehisi Coates.
"It's Torching" — A Traincrash of Speech
There’s a a video on youtube of a guy and his friend (and baby, in babyseat in the back seat) driving toward a fire and then explosion of a train blowing up just outside Baltimore (don’t worry… according to authorities it’s just “toxic” but nothing to worry about). So I’m watching this video thinking, “These guys are likely candidates for…
Right-Wing Lies (VII) – Free Obama Phones for the Poor
A while back I started hearing rumors about “Obama phones.” You know, Obama taking our hard-earned money to give free phones to undeserving poor people in the ghetto. Really? I keep hearing about this, so I thought there must be something to it. Take this facebook post from a Baltimore cop friend of mine: Beautiful day out and then I…