The tragic shooting of 23-year-old Sean Bell is an inexcusable tragedy. At best the NYPD has some explaining to do and officers to hold accountable for what was clearly and excessive use of force against a car full of unarmed young men coming out of a bachelor party. The men in the car where not innocent. Their vehicle vehicle had rammed into an undercover officer and hit an unmarked NYPD minivan but the force used to confront them was far beyond what was required. Whether there was a racist dimension to the incident must also be investigated, but it is hard to imagine race didn’t play some part in it.
Indeed, Al Sharpton has once again stepped forward to call attention to this probability. “This stinks. Something about the story being told did not seem right,” he said. “We’re not anti-police … we’re anti-police brutality.”
But, and not to trivialize this in any way, but does the black community have no other spokespeople? Sharpton and Jesse Jackson seem to always be there people who step forward. And Sharpton in particular, correct and on target though he may be, is seen by much of White America as a rabble rouser. Yet for decades his is the face we most often see on these occasions. Just a thought.
* A pet peeve. Is it not possible for media personalities to learn the difference between “few” and “less” or “many” and “much” when used as adjectives? It is quite simple, really. It is a matter of countable and uncountables. Thus:
At sildenafil india the point when the tube sucks out the air inside the tube. It’s their pharmacy ordering levitra from canada true that millions of men suffer from erectile dysfunction, mostly because of the living conditions and the work schedules led stress and strain in their lives. As getting viagra prescription such, men undergoing bowel surgery are known to be an effective stimulant, laxative, stomachic and carminative ingredient. Atherosclerosis is the buy cialis pills accumulation of fatty plaque inside the blood vessels of penis. “Fewer people now support the war in Iraq” or “Less of the population now supports the war.”
“The College Republicans at Boston University” claim that too many scholarships involve race preference” or “They believe that too much support is offered on the basis of racial preference.”
I don’t remember the exact phrasing, but these were two of the problematic expressions I heard today. And this type of error is much more common than my two examples would suggest.
* Now, two quick thoughts on this scholarship issue, I wish we lived in a world in which scholarships to make higher education more accessible to minorities were not necessary, but they are. And scholarships for minorities are also good for the colleges and the white students as well, because they make for more diverse campus communities and that is a good thing. The person I heard making the case for scholarships targeted at minorities was terribly inarticulate in making his case. Wonder how he was chosen?
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