If white people were treated this way ...

[kpete]

Watching Certain People
By BOB HERBERT
Published: March 1, 2010

................

While crime has been going down, the number of people getting stopped by the police is going up. Last year, more than 575,000 stops were made — a record. But 504,594 of those stops were of people who had done nothing wrong. They had committed no crime, were issued no summonses and were carrying no weapons or illegal substances.

Still, day after day, the cops continue harassing and degrading these innocent New Yorkers, often making them line up against walls, or lean spread-eagled on the hoods of cars, or sprawl face down in the street to be searched like criminals in front of curious, sometimes frightened, sometimes giggling, sometimes outraged onlookers.

If the police officers were treating white middle-class or wealthy individuals this way, the movers and shakers in this town would be apoplectic. The mayor would be called to account in an atmosphere of thunderous outrage, and the police commissioner would be gone.

But the people getting stopped and frisked are mostly young, and most of them are black or brown and poor. So Police Commissioner Ray Kelly could feel completely comfortable with his department issuing the order in 2006 that reports of all stops and frisks be forwarded and compiled “for input into the Department’s database.”

more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/opinion/02herbert.html?hp

[Solly Mack]

1. k/r

[MineralMan]

2. But, of course, they're not.

So they don't care. Thus has it always been. Thus shall it ever be.

[G_j]

3. True, and not bad for the NYT

thank you Bob Herbert.

[Winterblues]

4. Cops stop and check more people, crime goes down...hmmmm

:shrug:

[sailor65]

5. Although your post won't be popular,

I agree.....and I found an interesting response post in the article....

SNIP
“While crime has been going down, the number of people getting stopped by the police is going up.”

I can’t say whether there is a causal correlation there, but the fact that you haven’t even acknowledged that as a possibility, or refuted it with verifiable evidence, is telling. If preventative medicine isn’t fascist, then neither is preventative policing. Once again, your only supportable argument here is that they should frisk more white folks, which is still a canard since the white folks they did frisk were undoubtedly also young, lower income males.

“But it is not collecting and storing massive amounts of information on innocent middle-class or wealthy white people. Why is that, exactly?”

Uhhh--the same reason it is not collecting massive amounts of information on innocent middle-class or wealthy people of color—criminals in both of those demographics don’t tend to carry the tools of their trade in their waistbands. You have to look in their portfolios. Duh.

There are government agencies that do collect massive amounts of such information on such people—we call them the IRS and the FBI. You should look them up on Wikipedia, find out whom they spend most of their time ‘frisking,’ and why, and then see if you can write a more informed, balanced column that also takes class into account instead of just race. Unless you can tell us that the cops are hanging out on Wall Street waiting to frisk black bankers, or that the IRS targets people of color for audits, this argument remains nothing more than a race card diatribe.

END SNIP

[EFerrari]

16. Preventive medicine doesn't infringe on anyone's civil rights.

That's a boatload of bs.

[Flaneur]

26. The vast majority of those stop and frisks found nothing.

But go ahead, apologize away for NYPD's encroaching police state.

[wellst0nev0ter]

10. Crime Was Already Going Down Before They Implemented This BS

Hmmm... :eyes:

[EFerrari]

17. I got in my car and the sun came out.

:shrug:

[Raineyb]

24. Figures. Never ceases to amaze me the number of ass clowns

who make excuses for shit like this.

[Ignis]

29. Reading fail: You've reversed the order listed in the article.

I'll assume we're all smart enough to understand that correlation does not equal causation--BUT if you're going to infer such a ridiculous argument, it doesn't help your cause to misquote the article, which really said:

While crime has been going down, the number of people getting stopped by the police is going up.

Article: "A happened, but then B happened anyway."
You: "B happened, then A happened as a result."

Not the same thing.

[Brewman_Jax]

6. K&R

No one in the USA should be treated this way. :(

:kick:

[Brewman_Jax]

7. Kick

:kick: this example of real racism should NOT be allowed to just disappear.

[951-Riverside]

8. I lived in a poor neighborhood in the 80's and this happened all the time. Its nothing new.

Sad but true.

[liberal_at_heart]

9. oh be careful kpete

The last two times I've brought up the injustices African Americans face I've been bashed for it. Apparently racism doesn't exist anymore. I absolutely agree with you by the way.

[Number23]

11. Too late to rec but I can kick.

Love the lack of response/interest on this issue

[kpete]

12. yep,

It is hard to believe that DU represents a "liberal" or "progressive" point of view,
when this topic is basically ignored.

???, kp

[Number23]

13. As Brewman noted upthread, incidences of genuine racism here tend to be

ignored, and I believe in favor of sensationalism. Anything that can be used to "rally the troops" is somehow viewed as more important than incidences where people's lives, their rights and their livelihoods are genuinely affected.

I may be cynical, but I find that consistent with how America views the issue of race as a whole.

[EFerrari]

18. Right. Racism isn't racism but talking about it is!

[Number23]

30. As usual, E you are SPOT ON

And don't forget, CALLING someone a racist and "playing the race card" is INFINITELY worse than the act of racism that's being called out in the first place!! :crazy: :silly: :crazy: :silly: :crazy: :silly: :crazy:

[EFerrari]

36. It's like living in an extended alcoholic family.

DO NOT talk! :silly:

[EFerrari]

35. It's a difficult conversation for most people to have.

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Thanks, kp.

[Raineyb]

42. It's not likely to happen to most people around here (as they're white) or so they think.

If and when it does then suddenly there's an epiphany. (As evidenced by the newer, more commented thread on a white dude who had a run in with the police this evening.)

[Raineyb]

25. I guess if someone says they're going to shop at black owned businesses

we'd get more interested. (As well as the usual contingent wailing about how racist it is)

:eyes:

[Number23]

31. Or some isolated incident in which a group of blacks were called names

or mocked by some clueless nobody with no authority or ability to cause a lasting impact (like 90% of people of color don't go through something similar every Tuesday). Incidents that, though they may piss us off or hurt our feelings, result in no denial of rights or livelihood, unlike police brutality and/or racial profiling, redlining, disparities in education, prison sentencing, health treatments etc. etc. etc.

It's always interesting to me the things that people get "worked up over" around here. I hate to say it, and pardon my French, but most of it is utter bullshit.

[nyc 4 Biden]

14. Great op-ed!

It's the only part worth reading in the NYT anymore. Sad.

This is true and degrading for those affected. Just another way to intimidate the masses. Then again it may be a result of the ridiculous compstat program and the focus by the NYPD and Ray Kelly to increase the right stats and decrease the wrong ones. The NYPD is run like a friggin boiler room these days.

"Meet your numbers! not too violent though, we have to pretend violent crime is down!"

[asdjrocky]

15. Hey kpete!

I grew up in a very racially mixed neighborhood, and we know well about this. My best buddy and my neighbor often joke when we go out together that I should drive because of the DWB laws in our town.

The sad part is, it's really not a joke because we've both seen it happen too many times.

[EFerrari]

19. When my little brown mom needs to work with the Planning Department

on an inspection, she calls one of her partners and says, "Bill, I need a white man today to meet with the county."

:rofl:

[asdjrocky]

20. Yep.

I've found the races can work really well together when we really know what is up.

Bet your mom is a jewel.

[EFerrari]

21. She's fun.

Here she is holding her sign so freepers can read it:



She's going to b 78 on Sunday. :hi:

[kpete]

22. Fabulous

way to communicate,
ROCK ON!!!!
kp

[asdjrocky]

23. OMG!

She is so cool. Please tell her happy birthday from me!

[EFerrari]

34. Thanks, my friend. I sure will.

:hi:

[Number23]

32. Your mom is absolutely precious. I love her and I don't even know her

I hope she has a wonderful 78th birthday.

[EFerrari]

33. Thanks so much. Those are big size 6 sneakers.

:)

[butterfly77]

27. Kick &Recommended!

[Odin2005]

28. Pigs being pigs. Fuckers.

:puke:

[Obamanaut]

37. Are the involved police of various races? nt

[Brewman_Jax]

43. Irrelevant

[Obamanaut]

44. disagree

[Brewman_Jax]

45. So?

[Obamanaut]

46. so what?

[unapatriciated]

38. Michael Moore pointed this out ten years ago, sad to see nothing has changed

http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=xeOaTpYl8mE

kick since I saw it too late to rec

[Raineyb]

39. And as if to prove the point there's a OP about having been humiliated by

the police that has 33 replies in considerably less time than this OP has been up. Oddly enough people have plenty to say about how awful it is to be treated so poorly by the police.

[fishwax]

40. pretty outrageous

Too late to recommend this, but I'll kick it back to the top for more visibility :kick:

[MrScorpio]

41. The lesson to be learned here...

Is that some white people are sure that they can get away with anything, because the cops' attention is primarily focused on black and brown people.