What exactly is the worst police department in America? On one hand Chicago police had a secret torture site. On the other hand cops in Ohio killed a Black woman in her own house while she held her infant. Then again, the entire police department of King City had to close down
because so many cops were arrested. But then New York cops raped a handcuffed man with a plunger IN a police station. Though Harris County cops in Texas physically "examined" a woman's vagina on camera for 11 minutes during a routine traffic stop. But then Boston cops covered for
an accused child rapist for years, promoted him, and made him their union president. Still, plainclothes cops in Hugo Oklahoma shot three Black children ages 5, 4, and a 1 year old baby in the head. Then again, DC cops shot unarmed Miriam Carey dead with her baby in the car.
I guess that's not as bad as Milwaukee cops giving an Asian child victim who escaped back to serial killer, rapist, and cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer, against the protests of a Black woman witness who was trying to save him. But then there was that time that cops in Miami shot the
caretaker of an autistic man playing with a toy truck, even though the aide had his hands up and was laying flat on the ground explaining the young man's disability. Still, I can't forget all the terrible stuff uncovered about the Ferguson police department after Darren Wilson
killed Mike Brown. But then cops in Oklahoma City had to suspect that Daniel Holtzclaw was a serial rapist targeting Black women. Still cops in Philly were running an entire drug ring and robbing people. But maybe that's nothing on Baltimore, where over a dozen cops have been
federally charged in their own drug ring, including lots of veterans-- and one cop who was supposed to testify against them ended up mysteriously dead without much police fanfare. Of course that cop in North Charleston shot Walter Scott while he was running away and his fellow
officers lied for him. Still, Orlando cops at the Pulse shooting really let that psychopath rampage and kill dozens of people for hours. Anyway, I'm just trying to figure it out. Really hard to narrow down once you start.
Would love to hear your nominees!
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I'm a dark-skinned natural hair "inner-city" Black girl with a single mom from the projects raised by folks who believed in me and loved on me.
And today I was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure.
There are so many folks to thank- mostly folks who made this possible - introduced me to an editor, called a friend at a journal, invited me to be on a panel, told me that my writing was great.
There were so many voices that said I couldn't, but theirs were stronger.
A big thanks goes to my advisor @johnljacksonjr who continues to teach me the importance of grace and generosity in this career. I owe you an untold debt :-) I hope to pay it forward.
The whole cancel culture thing is the biggest scam because I’m pretty sure Fox News and Breitbart invented the thing where you bring media attention to someone being critical of cops, wealthy people, or white people to get them fired or deluged by death threats.
Was Breitbart’s attack on the working people’s org ACORN not cancel culture? Fox and Breitbart’s attack on Black USDA official Shirley Sherrod wasn’t cancel culture? The regular bits where Tucker Carlson & friends secretly record and broadcast a professor criticizing whiteness?
The truth is the invention of reactionary ideological assaults and rhetoric using media in order to silence, humiliate, and destroy the careers or organizations of opposing political groups is basically the Fox News and conservative media public sphere’s entire racket.
My student is texting me, upset at what's happening. Wondering if it's hypocritical to want to see these guys laying siege to our government leaders treated like they treated protestors who marched in defense of of Black Lives.
Here's what I told her:
Be careful of false equivalences here.
Racism and anti-blackness means that Black people are always presumed to be dangerous, even when peaceful.
And white people are assumed to be peaceful, even when they are dangerous.
Right now, police officers are failing at keeping people safe and are protecting folks who've explicitly declared themselves to be targeting elected officials.
This is not the same as me walking a public street asking police to not kill my child.
Just learned my 63 year-old kind, gentle, much beloved uncle was still working at his Pepsi job through the pandemic bc his wife lost her job. He’s been there for over 30 years and didn’t want to lose his benefits.
He died of COVID-19 yesterday. 8 months shy of retirement.
This country’s abyssmal, unimaginable failure to control this virus has devastated millions and millions of Americans. Our country is being run by people who expect the worst, do the worst, and make us the worst of what we can be.
I am so angry. This is just one more horrific story in a horrific landscape but it matters. We cannot continue to let those at the top devour those of us at the bottom. We deserve better than this.