*Drops Smoke Pellet*

There was a thread that I read in the MCNO email listserv that I found increasingly insulting about how the answer to crime in New Orleans was to initiate a stop and frisk policy.  Below was my response.  I think I just walked into their house, told them all why and how to fuck themselves, and smoke pelleted out.  Oh well.  That was my first post, too.

I usually lurk in this group, especially avoiding the massive strings of debate/arguments that tend to develop in conversations about the NOPD or MCSD, but I really had to respond to the idea that stop and frisk is a policy that should be implemented in New Orleans, an idea that is based on little factual information.  The reason why stop and frisk has recently been the topic of so much conversation is because studies have finally been released that find that it is an expensive policy that has not been effective, but has been racist and contributed to communities of color not trusting the police and, you know, generally feeling oppressed and criminalized for being Black or Brown.

Here are some facts for the factless, which can be found in your local Google search:

• In 2011, 685,724 people were stopped, 84% of whom were Black and Latino.
• Blacks and Latinos represent 23% and 29% percent of NYC's total population.
• 88% of 2011 stops did not result in an arrest or a summons being given.
• Contraband was found in only 2% of all stops.
• Weapons were recovered in only 1% of all stops.
• Blacks and Latinos are more likely to have physical forced used against them.
• Stops made of Whites were slightly more likely to yield contraband.
• Whites were twice as likely to be found with a weapon.

Here's a list of "15 Shocking Facts About a Controversial Program" (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/13/nypd-stop-and-frisks-15-shocking-facts_n_1513362.html), which are not at all shocking if you have a degree in sociology or live in America with your head outside of your rear end.

Recently a judge granted a lawsuit against the NYPD class action status.  The lawsuit states, among other things, that the police department concentrates its stop-and frisk activity on Black and Latino neighborhoods, and that officers are pressured to meet quotas and are punished if they do not.  One of the reasons why judge Scheindlin granted the suit class action status is because she was disturbed that the city responded to the lawsuit by saying that a "court order to stop the practice would amount to judicial intrusion, and that no injunction could guarantee thatsuspicion-less stops would never occur or would only occur in a certain percentage of encounters".  Because...cops aren't supposed to stop you without reasonable suspicion.  In case you didn't know.  I guess the NYPD doesn't.

If you actually care about how the victims of this NYPD policy feel, see this video here from the Melissa Harris-Perry show on MSNBC:  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46979745/vp/46843623#46843623

Hard data  from the NYPD itself, that most of these articles and the lawsuit itself quote. (http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/analysis_and_planning/stop_question_and_frisk_report.shtml)

An article that weighs the pros and cons (http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120519/OPINION/205190303/-1/SITEMAP).  The author seems to conclude that the racial profiling is worth the lower murder rate, but:

1.  The crime rate is lower than it was in the 80's, but I'm not sure if comparing current numbers to numbers that existed 3 decades ago is useful - surely stop and frisk is not the only policy that's changed about the NYPD or the city in general that could affect crime during all of that time?

2. As this article points out (http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20120605/new-york-city/stop-and-frisks-have-done-little-reduce-shootings-nypd-data-shows), compared to more recent years the stop and frisk stops have increased exponentially, but the number of victims of gunfire have remained stagnant for the most part.

3. It's really bad statistics for Bloomberg to think that he can predict how many lives have been saved because of stop and frisk.  One of the few things that stuck in my head from my statistics classes at Cornell University is that correlation does not equal causation.  Try saying "stop and frisk increased at the same time that gun violence decreased (but not really), so stop and frisk must be working!"  That is a correlative statement.  They could  be related, but that does not mean that one caused the other to happen.

Another article about how stop and frisks have not decreased shootings in NYC (http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/06/stop-and-frisks-havent-stopped-shootings.html).

And a brand new petition from Color of Change (http://www.jackandjillpolitics.com/2012/07/colorofchange-org-tells-nyc-officials-time-to-unite-the-two-new-yorks/), which includes many more stats, and mentions that some of these stops include full-body searches and the NYPD demanding that victims hand over their valuables (sources are included at the link).

So, in short, the practice is racist and ineffective, but if you come to a different conclusion by actually looking up facts using resources that I'm sure you all have, I'd love to hear it.  And I agree with Mrs. Wayman - bringing up the fact that most of NOLA's murderers are Black without mentioning that most of the murder victims are also Black is offensive, and I'll go even further - white murder victims are valued higher, which is why there are so many unsolved murders in any major city with a high Black or Brown populace.  Why do I know the names of the white victims of murder from the past few years?  It's not just because there are few - it's because even though I don't even watch the news, I heard their names everywhere and the little resources that the NOPD apparently has were focused on those people and finding their killers as quickly as possible.  Since I just spent the past hour and a half doing research to fight someone else's ignorance, you (anyone) tell me how many white victims of murder there were in 2011, and whether or not their killers were caught?

Anecdote:  A friend of mine recently did grand jury duty.  He eventually had his therapist write him a note to get out of it because he was becoming depressed seeing all of the indictments that his fellow jurors were handing down on cases that had very circumstantial evidence.  There were a couple of cases, though, where there was an immense amount of evidence, down to crossed T's and dotted I's.  The difference?  Not in the race of the accused, but the race of the victim.

So I find it massively insulting that it can be insisted on a forum that is made up of a class of people who are actually valued and protected by the NOPD that the answer to the issue of crime that mainly affects a community of people who are devalued, alienated, and criminalized by the police department is to further alienate, degrade, and insult those people.

The Other Side + A Debate:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/21/nypd-stop-and-frisk-ray-kelly-daily-news_n_1532930.html

http://www.blackyouthproject.com/2012/06/bloomberg-visits-black-church-stop-and-frisk/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mari-fagel/beyond-the-numbers-_b_1536589.html

Other Sources:

http://www.ccrjustice.org/stopandfrisk/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/16/ny-stop-and-frisk-lawsuit_n_1521081.html?ref=black-voices&ir=Black%20Voices

http://ccrjustice.org/files/CCR_Stop_and_Frisk_Fact_Sheet.pdf

http://www.nyclu.org/node/1598

Thousands of Gulf Oil Spill Clean-up Crew Are Dying!

This is horrible.  Rich people will always take advantage of people who can't afford to turn down the dangerous work that they don't want to do themselves.

Five years later, a richer, whiter New Orleans - Salon.com

This is an article that I meant to post around the end of August, about the issue of gentrification in New Orleans post-8.29.  Some of the comments are angry-making, but probably indicative of how most Americans feel about poor, black people.  The thing is, all of the things that out-of-towners love about New Orleans, wouldn't exist without black folks, past, present, and future.

Prisoners of Katrina | BBC Video

This documentary was made about 4 years ago, but it details some things that I'd only heard bits and pieces of about what happened to the prisoners durring the hurricane and subsequent flooding.  I'm sure that the BBC has its own biases, but man, do they do a better job at real journalism then American cable news channels do.  Do you know what "breaking news" CNN was emailing me about tonight?  Modern Family and Mad Men (I think) winning Emmys.  Really?  Not your job, CNN.  There's about a bajillion sources where I could get that information from, and it makes me sad that you're America's most legitimate 24hr news channel.

The Urban Politico: Unmasking the Prison Industrial Complex Part 1 of 3: The High Profits of Prison Labor

This is a great read. I didn't know so many companies were using prison labor now. I doubt that we'll ever have leaders ballsy enough to take on prison reform, even though it's clearly a damaged system.

The Talented Tenth

This is an interesting post.  When I was at Cornell I heard a lot about the so called "Talented 10th" (and that we, Black students of the Ivy League, were a part of it), but never really knew what it meant or where it came from.  Now that I know, I do think that the Talented 10th is failing their communities of origin.  So many of my classmates did a little charity work here and there, and moved on to focusing on their education and career tracks.  Everyone wants to get theirs, and it seems like no one understands that their singular success means nothing if there's five more little Black girls being born to a life of poverty and abuse back where they came from.

One though that crossed my mind is that for some of these upwardly mobile Blacks their experiences growing up in these neighborhoods that need help desperately were so bad that they can't fathom the idea of going back, even to help the kids who are helpless to the choices that their parents make.  They start to see "those people" as the enemy, the reason why Black people always look so bad in the media, the ones who are holding Black people back.  They separate themselves further and further away from "them" that they can't even see that they used to be one of "them", back when they didn't have a choice in the matter.  Even though they themselves were once a part of this community, they're the "special flower that grew out of the concrete", instead of the lucky kid who was born to a future-thinking parent or was guided by some other caring adult.

Another reason could be the effects of assimilation into American culture.  The other ethnic groups that the article mentions as having the village mentality and working to lift others like them up were voluntary immigrants to this country.  They came to this country because of it would benefit not only them, but their whole families, and no matter how individualistic American society is, it's not going to change a first generation immigrant's view on how much time, money, and effort they should invest in their lesser well off family members.  I think that slavery separated Black people so much from out ancestor's "community values" that we've completely ascribed to the Western idea of individual freedom above all else, which I'm coming to realize is a detrimental belief for a group in the minority to have.  We need to be a village, or else we'll always be stuck in these cycles of poverty that dominate poor Black neighborhoods.

If there was a "Talented Tenth", which I'm not sure there is because success in this country tends to be more about who you know than talent anyway, their duty should be to lift up those who are still at the bottom, and the reason that things are the way they are today is because they haven't done this and have abandoned generation after generation of Black children to raise themselves and each other.

I think I"m kind of rambling, I don't have a clear thought on this subject yet, but I'm tired of forwarding and linking other people's words because I'm too tired to write anything original.  I've also come to the conclusion that, no matter how spoiled and childish this may sound, I am not made for a 9 to 5 job.  The hours don't even need to be shorter, just different.  Well, maybe a little shorter.

News Briefs: CNN Special, Classism in Housing, Katrina Books, Charity Mess Continues, Pot is Safer, 1614 Esplanade, Katrina and the Prez, Mayoral Warchests,1B1NO, Sex from the Inside

CNN To Air Katrina Anniversary Specials: CNN will air special segments focusing on rebuilding efforts in New Orleans this week.

Jarvis DeBarry on class-based discrimination in the rental market in New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish.

A few books on Katrina and her aftermath, New Orleans, or the South in general.

More info on the LSU Complex vs. Charity Hospital battle.  The revised plans are just wasteful.  There's half the number of buildings than was first proposed.  They want to pave people's homes over for parking and trees?

Pot is better, but you already knew that, didn't you?

Articles about President Obama and his promises to rebuild New Orleans, and the new New Orleans.

So far Murray leads with the most money raised for his mayoral race.  James Perry has raised the second highest amount of people who've declared candidacy, but Badon hasn't reported his winnings yet.

One Book, One New Orleans has chosen Gumbo Tales as it's book this year.

A friend of mine made a website for the co-op that he lives in.  These artist types, so creative.

Aaaaand, an MRI of a couple having sex.



I gotta say, I'm probably going to have the image in my head of him poking her insides around for a while.  Is the vaginal canal shorter than I imagined, or was he just really big?  Does this mean that when people have sex while pregnant, the penis really is poking the baby in the head (through the uterine wall)?  Ack!  Also, how much did the couple get paid to do this?