This “stop and frisk” in NYC has got to stop!
I was with a friend on Sunday on the upper west side. We had met at the bus stop. We were both waiting for a bus to Harlem, the community where I live and where I originally met him.
It was a warm and sultry day in NYC. I had just come from a funeral and was glad to be going home. So my friend and I were just hangin’ talking. He was holding a brown paper bag drinking something out of it. The next thing I know, this cop gets off his bicycle, walks over to my friend, and says “I want to see what’s in your bag.” My friend shows him, he was drinking an energy drink
And I felt this horrible feeling inside. I felt this shame for all of us that racism is so built into our culture. They are trying to lower crime in NYC. Bullshit. That’s not the way it’s going to happen. I could not believe it was happening in that moment. I was dumbfounded. I am sure this guy is so used to it happening to him. It doesn’t matter how nicely dressed you are, what you look like, but if you are black you are going to get stopped. Yuck. Too much. Much too much. This ugliness in our system has got to be exorcised. It’s not good for anyone.
Bill Moyers had a program with Khalll Gibran Muhammad, and they speak in the show of the subtleties of racism in our system, and of course things that aren’t so subtle. Here’s the link to the show in case you want to check it out.
http://billmoyers.com/segment/preview-confronting-the-contradictions-of-america’s-past/
Again, I share this article with a heavy heart in the hopes that racism for all will come to an end. That’s my hope. Naive? Maybe.
Tags: african american, NYC, publicist nyc, publicity nyc, racism, sherri rosen publicity nyc
This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 1st, 2012 at 7:44 am and is filed under athlete, Friends and Colleagues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
