…those Asian Americans that say race doesn’t matter anymore bother me the most. Race does matter. Do I want people to be judged by their merit? Of course. But that’s just not the country we live in. Let’s be real here. Race plays a major factor in things like education, health, social economic outcomes, whether you can get a loan from a bank, get a job interview, criminal sentencing, etc. As an Asian American, sometimes it’s just not as oblivious [sic] as it is for other people of color. But they are still there. They are just more subtle. For example, if it was all about merit, wouldn’t it mean that there should be more Asian American politicians, CEOs, and people in positions of leadership in California? Especially when you consider about half the students graduating from the University of California system are Asian/Asian American? Whew. I’m glad I got that off my chest…
![‘A drug arrest does not require anything other than getting out of your radio car and jacking people up against the side of the liquor store. The problem is that that cop that made that cheap drug arrest, he’s going to get paid. He’s going to get the hours of overtime for taking the drugs down to…[the evidence control unit]. He’s going to get paid for processing the prisoner down at central booking. He’s going to get paid for sitting back at his desk and writing the paperwork for a couple hours. Then the case is going to get called to court and a prosecutor’s going to sign his overtime slip for two, three hours to show up for a case that’s probably going to be stetted [dropped] because it’s unconstitutional. And he’s going to do that 40, 50, 60 times a month. So his base pay might end up being half of what he’s actually paid as a police officer. Meanwhile…In Baltimore, the clearance rates—our percentage of arrests for felonies—for rape, murder, robbery, auto theft, for the things that make a city unlivable—are half of what they once were. Our drug arrest stats are twice what they once were. That makes a city unlivable. It creates a criminal atmosphere that has no deterrent. It makes a police department where nobody can solve a fucking crime.’
more, from David Simon of The Wire regarding a new documentary.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/df82333de4ba03615811b3dfb98e17a1/tumblr_mkjgrfGQ8P1qcwnv4o1_500.jpg)
‘The United States, after all, is hardly the only rich country in the world with laws…’
…There are…many countries that resemble ours in wealth and history; they have different gun laws, and they have much lower levels of gun violence. They have about the same incidence of crazy people, but after they have one psycho gun massacre they take action, and then very rarely have another. Meanwhile, the desperately dim efforts to equate some other potentially dangerous thing—cars or trucks or alcohol or airplanes—with guns gets more ridiculous each time they’re attempted. Many good things can have bad consequences in the wrong circumstances. What ought to be done—indeed, exactly what we often do—is to limit the dangerous consequences while allowing for the good ones. That’s why we do things like regulate who drives cars, put warning signs for pregnant women on wine, demand licenses on dogs, check people for box cutters before they board airplanes—all common-sense activities by which we attempt to regulate the risks of our pleasures.
more.
![villagevoice:
Everybody Wants a Piece of Kimani Gray. How a boy’s death became street theater in Flatbush.
[look of the hour]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/1e1e5c8fb5a55bc974abb6b20c888865/tumblr_mjyuq02JSq1qb6rl5o1_500.jpg)
![[meaningful glance]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/e35f943d2f0a5e9a64142b7a820bc25e/tumblr_mjnq7dWg0M1qcwnv4o1_500.jpg)
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