Commuting, my biases revealed

Snap judgments walking home from the metro:

Black man = bad.

Latino man = bad.

White man = bad.

Black man in a suit = good.

Black person of indeterminate gender carrying Hello Kitty backpack = very, very good. Yes, this is the person I will be keeping up with on the path!

Comments

Experience in jail

I was handcuffed at my home and driven to a processing station at the county “Justice Center.” Officers stood me against the wall and patted me down for contraband, checking my pockets, stripping off my socks, pulling out the insoles of my shoes. Other officers emptied my bag and wallet of their belongings, took my ring and hairclip from me, and wrestled my tennis shoes free from their laces, putting everything they had collected into a sealed plastic bag. Occasionally they asked me about this or that they had found among my things: looking at my business cards, “Do you know anyone famous?”, or at the Kerry and Obama stickers that adorn my little makeshift Metro card case, “Are you a Democrat or a Republican? Because if you’re a Republican, I can take you to see the commissioner right away.” They were joking and generally amused. I was sobbing and shaking. This was the worst day of my life but just another work day in theirs, just another tawdry soap opera of thousands ...

Tamir Rice and the man with no knife

Lately there’s been this drip-drip-drip of posts in my newsfeed that are — let’s be honest — rooted in racism. The slanted news articles, you know the ones. This one time a black person benefited at the expense of a white person, evidence of widespread “reverse racism!” Drip. This one black cop shot an unarmed white man but nobody cares because white people are discriminated against! Drip. A black person somewhere did something bad therefore it’s reasonable to fear all black people everywhere! Drip. Or the memes about black rioting. Drip. Or the absurdly emotional defenses of all police officer actions, even the ones that are demonstrably inexcusable. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. They aren’t posted by people who think of themselves as racists or who condone explicit racism, but they do reveal an inexcusable myopia about the biases we all have and a disturbing lack of empathy for people of color. Although I have never been one to unfriend people who disagree with my...

"Is the GOP Healthcare Law a Good Replacement for Obamacare?"

I drafted this piece on behalf of our organization for publication in newspapers around the country. Check out a version in today's Sacramento Bee . The shortest answer to their prompt is simply: Hell no. Con: Millions lose health insurance to pay for tax The Affordable Care Act (ACA, or “Obamacare”) extended health insurance to 20 million people while closing loopholes in existing insurance for everyone. The GOP proposal would take health insurance away from 24 million people —and likely millions more —and re-open those loopholes. While it is marketed as an ACA repeal, the GOP proposal actually goes far beyond the ACA, attacking long-standing programs like Medicaid and long-standing health providers like Planned Parenthood. The bill does all of this in order to give the 400 wealthiest households in America an average tax cut of $7 million each . Doctors groups like the American Medical Association, seniors groups like the AARP, patient groups like the American Cancer Soci...

A Mile Wide, An Inch Deep

Search This Blog