Comments

This is a tough issue. I tend to believe both sides of the equation are true, at least in the U.S.:

1) Blacks (esp. young adult black males) commit a disproportionate percentage of crime.

2) Blacks (esp. young adult black males) are disproportionately targeted by law enforcement.

This is completely unfair to any law-abiding black citizen. But it is understandable from a law enforcement perspective, if a routine investigative stop is more likely to result discovery of criminal activity when the person stopped is black.

I’m not defending it, but I think that’s what happening here.

City Journal has had a number of articles about this and other urban law enforcement topic over the years.

-- BenCalvin - 31 May 2006

Back to the original link, one thing that should have been emphasized and taken into account is:

Takovia Allen suffers from behavioral problems and attends a special class at Lely Elementary in Naples.

When my former-SPED-teacher friend taught adaptive behavior special ed middle and high school students, there were some years where she knew that she would have to wear shin guards to work, and she did. She says she really freaked out one of the kids when he hauled off and kicked her in the shins and was rewarded with a plasticky "THOCK!" sound.

Teachers in AB classes have to know that sometimes the kids will get violent. It's part of the MO for some of them. That's why there's a button on the wall, and why the AB teachers are all trained in non-violent crisis intervention, that is, defusing potentially violent situations and calming down out-of-control kids.

I think in my friend's school, the kid would have been issued a ticket by the school's police officer, but not charged with a felony. I don't know what weight those tickets carry with the regular police.

There's no way this six-year-old should have been charged with felonious assault. The country is going mad.

-- GoogleMaster - 31 May 2006

Hi, Ben

I always felt the same way until it started happening to people I'm close to.

Until now, I haven't been bothered when Christian has been the target of fear and suspicion. As I mentioned, the guy is huge, and he's got a ferocious "game face" - although he wasn't wearing it when he was being dissed by the snot behind the counter.

Jimmy's pretty big, too, and I can see where the two of them lumbering along, their faces covered by hoods, would alarm the locals.

But yesterday was over the line.

Christine's mom is 53 years old, and she was driving the car. They stopped her just a few yards shy of the mouth of our street.

I've never seen the police stop a middle-aged white woman in Irvington. Never.

I'm mulling over what to do, but nothing's coming to me at the moment.

I do need to address it, though. This is a tiny little town - 6500 people - and Christian has been with us for two years.

If they're not runnning middle-aged white women's licenses, I don't want them stomping on Christian's mom.

As to the schools, they're hopeless.

Our principal's attitude - any black boy can lick any white boy no matter what the size differential - is just lame. When lame meets up with zero tolerance, you've got one more reason black kids aren't going to learn a thing in school.

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 May 2006

At this point, I don't think stopping Christian's mom was about nabbing a criminal. She's not a criminal, and neither is he.

What the police nabbed was her car, which she'll now have to pay a small fortune to ransom.

I think their misstep was driving through Dobbs Ferry.

It strikes me that I never see black folks driving through these towns, and Broadway, which is at the foot of our hill, is a very busy street. That's where they stopped her.

I especially never see young black men driving through these towns.

Why is that?

Now I'm wondering.

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Jun 2006

Wondering and mulling.

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Jun 2006

Google Master

When my former-SPED-teacher friend taught adaptive behavior special ed middle and high school students, there were some years where she knew that she would have to wear shin guards to work, and she did. She says she really freaked out one of the kids when he hauled off and kicked her in the shins and was rewarded with a plasticky "THOCK!" sound.

Damn straight.

That's another thing.

Christian's mom works in a group care facility with developmentally disabled adults and was injured this week.

I've had it.

Jimmy & Andrew have both aggressed against teachers, parents, and relatives many, many times.

Jimmy came out of it at some point along the way, but Andrew's still there.

It's easy to get hurt working with these kids.

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Jun 2006

kind of a fun article on the game face, subscription only, unfortunately

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Jun 2006

It was not a typical job workshop. ''When's a good time to show this face?'' asked Gyasi Headen, a manager of training at Strive, a nonprofit job training and placement organization on East 123rd Street in Manhattan. He slumped in his chair, rested his head on the palm of his extended arm, and glared at the 20 or so mostly black male job seekers who gathered on a recent Monday, the first day of a four-week job-readiness training program.

''At 12 o'clock at night, you're in the 'hood and they're going to try to get you,'' one man answered.

Another man said, ''It's to keep people at bay.''

James Moody, 30, of Brooklyn, offered: ''It's when you want to intimidate somebody.''

The men were talking about ''game face,'' slang for the menacing expression worn by many African-American and Hispanic men who live in inner cities. But many men who wear their game faces on the streets also wear them on interviews and at work, preventing them from getting and keeping jobs, said Mr. Headen, who is black.

Mr. Moody acknowledged, ''I got one of those faces -- it's a byproduct of my environment.'' By way of explanation, he said that 12 years in prison, which began when he was a teenager, had taken a toll.

''But I'm trying to square up,'' he said. ''That's why I'm sitting here.''

Mr. Headen stressed the importance of leaving the game face behind at interviews. Employers, he explained to the group, are often willing to provide training for entry-level employees who have good attitudes and are willing to learn.

''You only have 30 seconds to make a first impression, and the next half-hour to really win a person over,'' Mr. Headen said. ''Rob me with your smile, please. You know, 'He was a nice gentleman and he robbed me.' '' The class members -- many of them, like Mr. Headen, former offenders -- laughed.

I don't even know what "rob me with your face" means.

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Jun 2006

The funny thing is, I've always had a STRONG sense of what height I wanted Jimmy to grow up to be.

I wanted him to make it to 6 feet, or close to, but I didn't want him to grow taller.

I figured that, at 6 feet, he'd tend to deter violent aides just through size.

But if he grew much taller than that he'd frighten people too much for them to work with him.

We've been lucky, because it looks like he's going to end up exactly where we wanted him - and it looks like I was right about what height would keep him (somewhat) safe without frightening people he'll have to depend on.

Christian's problem is that he's WAY too tall, and way too large. He's just a very, very big person.

He's still in his dreadlock phase, and he scares white people half to death just existing.

You should have seen the guy in the video store.

God, what a scene.

It was middle-aged me, crazy Andrew, and dreadlock Christian.

There was so much staring going on I felt extremely self-conscious.

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Jun 2006

And I'm never self-conscious.

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Jun 2006

Yupyupandyup.

Until I moved to Pittsburgh and sent my kids to a public, magnet school, I really hadn't seen all the racism that people don't even get -- they'd swear to you up and down that they aren't racist -- how could they be? Here they are, good liberals, sending their kids to a 50/50 school.

Well, except that two white kids bumping each other in line...well, that's just kids. Two black kids bumping into each other in line...that should be the first step toward jail. It was amazing to see how they could NOT SEE misbehavior in white kids and identify every single incidence of it in black kids.

Then our ratio started tipping (through changes in other schools in the district -- you know, schools that weren't next to a housing project suddenly had more slots open) and then all you heard was that there was a discipline problem. At that point I'd been in the school for 4 years and I knew that lunchtime was much calmer and better, that there was NO increase in misbehavior. But, to white parents, more black kids = need for stricter, meaner discipline.

The new hot school in the district...the suspension rate for black boys is three times the suspension rate for white boys. Principal is white and courting the upper middle class white folks in the area. It's probably a pretty effective ploy. The black parents certainly know what's going on, but if they complain...well, people will just moan about how poorly behaved those kids are.

-- KtmGuest - 01 Jun 2006

I don't mean to dispute anything you have posted, or any implications you have drawn from it.

I hesitate to post this, but I must point out that Christian's mom was in violation of the law, even if it wasn't criminal law.

Speaking only of California, if one has enough unpaid parking tickets you can have your car booted or towed. It can also block you from getting your car registered, which also would get your car towed.

If you have unpaid moving violations (speeding tickets) you will be arrested and taken to jail if you come in contact with the police.

This happens to lot of lower income people, speaking from recollections of my younger, much poorer days.

Police also seem to run more checks on older, shabbier vehicles, as they are more likely to be out of compliance.

So we are back to the dual principals: she may have had her car registration checked due to her race (probably was). But when that was done she was in violation, although fortunately just civil, not criminal.

-- BenCalvin - 01 Jun 2006

A traffic stop like you mention happened here in central massachussets the other day and was written up in the paper. A black man with a suspended license was stopped by the police. The police readily admitted that they run plates constantly during their shifts to check for abnormalities. If they see it they run it, so the stop is probably not racially motivated. Like most small town police they want to keep outsiders out.

-- SeanPrice - 01 Jun 2006

But Sean, how do they figure out who's an outsider?

If they're figuring it out by skin color, that's a problem.

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Jun 2006

However....I've been thinking the same thing.

I've been thinking I need to introduce Christian to the police here and in Dobbs Ferry.

Seriously.

They're with us.

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Jun 2006

Christian's mom should pay her parking tickets.

But I have a problem with towing her car on the spot.

I've never, EVER, seen a white person get their car towed on the spot here in Irvington - and I know there have to be folks who haven't paid parking tickets.

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Jun 2006

Until I moved to Pittsburgh and sent my kids to a public, magnet school, I really hadn't seen all the racism that people don't even get -- they'd swear to you up and down that they aren't racist -- how could they be? Here they are, good liberals, sending their kids to a 50/50 school.

right

that's what I'm seeing

I don't think people here are consciously racist.....but a comment like "Your son must be tough, he'd have to be living where you do" coming from the principal, directed at a mom living in a very nice condo development that happens to have some black people in it....

it's just not good

that's one of the main reasons Ed refused to agree with the principal that Christopher "could get hurt," even though, obviously, Christopher could get hurt

The drift of the conversation - the subtext - was that black children are dangerous to white children even when the black child is half the size of the white child.

Since the principal had told Ed there wasn't any knife involved, and wouldn't be any knife involved in the future, either, the plain meaning of his statement was that this very small black boy is dangerous to a very much larger white boy.

Sure, a small kid who's coordinated & has some practice fighting can whomp a big kid who's not so coordinated & doesn't have practice.

But Ed just didn't want to go down the road of the affluent white parent expressing fear-of-black-children-at-school.

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Jun 2006

hmmm.....

I think I know the mayor of Dobbs Ferry.

I'll have to check.

He's our pharmacist, or was until we had to start mailing everything in.

I'm going to talk to him.

Also to our local police. I'll do that in person.

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Jun 2006