an album preview megamix.
from giorgio moroder & company.
PITCHFORK: Giorgio Moroder Previews Entire Déjà Vu Album in Epic Megamix Video
Friday, May 29, 2015
johnny and mary.
a video.
from todd terje & bryan ferry.
EARLIER:
dude... incredible. : the songs, 2014: 07/todd terje feat. bryan ferry/johnny & mary
from todd terje & bryan ferry.
EARLIER:
dude... incredible. : the songs, 2014: 07/todd terje feat. bryan ferry/johnny & mary
surf.
starring donnie trumpet & the social experiment.
STEREOGUM: Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment’s Surf Is Out Now
Thursday, May 28, 2015
the passions.
a video.
from owen pallett.
EARLIER:
dude... incredible. : the albums, 2014: 21/owen pallett/in conflict
from owen pallett.
EARLIER:
dude... incredible. : the albums, 2014: 21/owen pallett/in conflict
inside out.
a spoon remix.
from dj quik, iamsu!, kurupt & boogie.
PITCHFORK: DJ Quik Remixes Spoon's "Inside Out" With Iamsu!, Kurupt, and Boogie
from dj quik, iamsu!, kurupt & boogie.
PITCHFORK: DJ Quik Remixes Spoon's "Inside Out" With Iamsu!, Kurupt, and Boogie
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
chrissybaby forever.
an album stream.
starring christopher owens.
PITCHFORK: Christopher Owens Releases Surprise Album Chrissybaby Forever
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
hiatus.
Another broadcast from my home studio https://t.co/yWlR4TofqG
— Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) May 23, 2015
Friday, May 22, 2015
Thursday, May 21, 2015
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
i know there's gonna be (good times).
starring jamie xx, young thug, and popcaan.
PITCHFORK: Jamie xx Teams With Young Thug and Popcaan on "I Know There's Gonna Be (Good Times)"
PITCHFORK: Jamie xx Teams With Young Thug and Popcaan on "I Know There's Gonna Be (Good Times)"
(grand old) party.
a moment of clarity.
words.
"...before you think of moving to Canada for a year and a half, or tuning out and reading Tolstoy and Dickens, take a peek at a new analysis of the American political firmament by Sean Trende and David Byler, of the Web site Real Clear Politics. It’s a data-driven article that examines what’s happening not only in Washington but in legislatures and statehouses around the country, which also have a significant impact on people’s lives. Trende and Byler conclude that the Republican Party is already stronger than it has been for many decades. With a good result in 2016, including a takeover of the White House, it could virtually sweep the board. Indeed, Trende and Byler say, the Republicans could end up in their strongest position since 1920, the year women got the vote.
...Trende and Byler concede that their portrait of Republican dominance “is at odds with the prevailing theme of a Republican Party with serious demographic problems,” which “make it difficult for the GOP to win the presidency.” But they also point out that “those same shifts have strengthened it in the states, which is where most lawmaking takes place.” (In an earlier article, Byler pointed out how partisan redistricting has also helped Republicans at the local level.) The two analysts conclude: “None of this is to say that Republicans are building a permanent majority of any sort. It is simply to say that when one takes account of the full political picture, the Republican Party is stronger than it has been in most of our readers’ lifetimes. This is important, and more analysis should take account of this fact.”
It should—and indignant voters should pay attention, too. At this stage, Democratic control of the White House is about the only thing holding the Republicans back, but the Party is far from invulnerable..."
THE NEW YORKER: Why 2016 Is So Very Important
words.
"...before you think of moving to Canada for a year and a half, or tuning out and reading Tolstoy and Dickens, take a peek at a new analysis of the American political firmament by Sean Trende and David Byler, of the Web site Real Clear Politics. It’s a data-driven article that examines what’s happening not only in Washington but in legislatures and statehouses around the country, which also have a significant impact on people’s lives. Trende and Byler conclude that the Republican Party is already stronger than it has been for many decades. With a good result in 2016, including a takeover of the White House, it could virtually sweep the board. Indeed, Trende and Byler say, the Republicans could end up in their strongest position since 1920, the year women got the vote.
...Trende and Byler concede that their portrait of Republican dominance “is at odds with the prevailing theme of a Republican Party with serious demographic problems,” which “make it difficult for the GOP to win the presidency.” But they also point out that “those same shifts have strengthened it in the states, which is where most lawmaking takes place.” (In an earlier article, Byler pointed out how partisan redistricting has also helped Republicans at the local level.) The two analysts conclude: “None of this is to say that Republicans are building a permanent majority of any sort. It is simply to say that when one takes account of the full political picture, the Republican Party is stronger than it has been in most of our readers’ lifetimes. This is important, and more analysis should take account of this fact.”
It should—and indignant voters should pay attention, too. At this stage, Democratic control of the White House is about the only thing holding the Republicans back, but the Party is far from invulnerable..."
THE NEW YORKER: Why 2016 Is So Very Important
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Monday, May 18, 2015
Sunday, May 17, 2015
crowded house.
a moment of clarity.
words.
"Soon after the King assassination, Congress passed the Fair Housing Act, which banned housing discrimination and required states and local governments that receive federal housing money to try to overcome historic patterns of segregation and to “affirmatively further” federal fair housing goals. But the effort was hampered from the beginning by local officials who ignored or opposed the goal of desegregation and by federal officials, including presidents, who simply declined to enforce it.
A growing body of evidence suggests that America would be a different country today had the government taken its responsibility seriously.
...little of the promise of progressive-sounding laws was truly realized. The government’s failure to enforce the fair housing law can be seen throughout much of the country; metropolitan areas with large black populations have, in fact, remained highly segregated."
THE NEW YORK TIMES: Housing Apartheid, American Style
words.
"Soon after the King assassination, Congress passed the Fair Housing Act, which banned housing discrimination and required states and local governments that receive federal housing money to try to overcome historic patterns of segregation and to “affirmatively further” federal fair housing goals. But the effort was hampered from the beginning by local officials who ignored or opposed the goal of desegregation and by federal officials, including presidents, who simply declined to enforce it.
A growing body of evidence suggests that America would be a different country today had the government taken its responsibility seriously.
...little of the promise of progressive-sounding laws was truly realized. The government’s failure to enforce the fair housing law can be seen throughout much of the country; metropolitan areas with large black populations have, in fact, remained highly segregated."
THE NEW YORK TIMES: Housing Apartheid, American Style
Saturday, May 16, 2015
Friday, May 15, 2015
early.
a video.
from run the jewels.
PITCHFORK: Run the Jewels Share Politically-Charged, Animated "Early" Video
from run the jewels.
PITCHFORK: Run the Jewels Share Politically-Charged, Animated "Early" Video
Thursday, May 14, 2015
slum village.
a moment of clarity/real talk.
words.
NPR: Historian Says Don't 'Sanitize' How Our Government Created Ghettos
words.
NPR: Historian Says Don't 'Sanitize' How Our Government Created Ghettos
insecurity.
starring los angeles police department.
BANDCAMP: Insecurity / Water & Wine by Los Angeles Police Department
american beauty.
an ongoing discussion/moment of clarity.
words.
"We don’t know yet what caused Tuesday night’s train derailment in Philadelphia, which killed at least seven people and injured scores more. On Wednesday, the National Transportation Safety Board said that the train was travelling at more than a hundred miles an hour, on a sharp turn where the speed limit was just fifty miles an hour. But even if human error was responsible for what happened, the crash also highlights the fact that some stretches of the track that Amtrak uses are unsuitable for high-speed travel, and they are also not equipped with the modern technology necessary to enable automatic override systems, which can slow down speeding trains.
...One thing we do know for sure is that, for decades now, the United States has been allowing its public infrastructure to decay.
...And that’s just transportation infrastructure. Many of America’s schools, sewage systems, and parks could do with an upgrade, too. A couple of years ago, a survey by the World Economic Forum ranked the United States twenty-fifth globally in overall quality of infrastructure, behind such nations as Spain, Oman, and South Korea. That’s hardly surprising..."
THE NEW YORKER: After the Amtrak Crash, It’s Time to Get Serious About Transportation Infrastructure
SEE ALSO:
HUFF POST MEDIA: Rachel Maddow Blames Congress For Amtrak Derailment
words.
"We don’t know yet what caused Tuesday night’s train derailment in Philadelphia, which killed at least seven people and injured scores more. On Wednesday, the National Transportation Safety Board said that the train was travelling at more than a hundred miles an hour, on a sharp turn where the speed limit was just fifty miles an hour. But even if human error was responsible for what happened, the crash also highlights the fact that some stretches of the track that Amtrak uses are unsuitable for high-speed travel, and they are also not equipped with the modern technology necessary to enable automatic override systems, which can slow down speeding trains.
...One thing we do know for sure is that, for decades now, the United States has been allowing its public infrastructure to decay.
...And that’s just transportation infrastructure. Many of America’s schools, sewage systems, and parks could do with an upgrade, too. A couple of years ago, a survey by the World Economic Forum ranked the United States twenty-fifth globally in overall quality of infrastructure, behind such nations as Spain, Oman, and South Korea. That’s hardly surprising..."
THE NEW YORKER: After the Amtrak Crash, It’s Time to Get Serious About Transportation Infrastructure
SEE ALSO:
HUFF POST MEDIA: Rachel Maddow Blames Congress For Amtrak Derailment
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
coming attractions.
with julian casablancas + the voidz.
PITCHFORK: Julian Casablancas + the Voidz Preview Bonkers "Human Sadness" Video
PITCHFORK: Julian Casablancas + the Voidz Preview Bonkers "Human Sadness" Video
hearts afire.
a moment of clarity.
words.
"...Obama also recognized that despite the hard work of today’s graduates, there were different, equally persistent barriers to their success. The power of her words enhanced by sharing the experiences of herself and her husband.
'The world won’t always see you in those caps and gowns. They won’t know how hard you worked and how much you sacrificed to make it to this day — the countless hours you spent studying to get this diploma, the multiple jobs you worked to pay for school, the times you had to drive home and take care of your grandma, the evenings you gave up to volunteer at a food bank or organize a campus fundraiser. They don’t know that part of you.
Instead they will make assumptions about who they think you are based on their limited notion of the world. And my husband and I know how frustrating that experience can be. We’ve both felt the sting of those daily slights throughout our entire lives — the folks who crossed the street in fear of their safety; the clerks who kept a close eye on us in all those department stores; the people at formal events who assumed we were the “help” — and those who have questioned our intelligence, our honesty, even our love of this country.
And I know that these little indignities are obviously nothing compared to what folks across the country are dealing with every single day — those nagging worries that you’re going to get stopped or pulled over for absolutely no reason; the fear that your job application will be overlooked because of the way your name sounds; the agony of sending your kids to schools that may no longer be separate, but are far from equal; the realization that no matter how far you rise in life, how hard you work to be a good person, a good parent, a good citizen — for some folks, it will never be enough.'
...In the end, Obama delivered a universal message specifically tailored to African American graduates who will go on to do great things for this nation. If that’s “playing the race card,” then we should get the entire deck."
THE WHITE HOUSE BLOG: In Case You Missed It: The First Lady's Powerful Remarks to Tuskegee University's Class of 2015
ALSO:
THE WASHINGTON POST: Michelle Obama’s forceful speech on race at Tuskegee University
words.
"...Obama also recognized that despite the hard work of today’s graduates, there were different, equally persistent barriers to their success. The power of her words enhanced by sharing the experiences of herself and her husband.
'The world won’t always see you in those caps and gowns. They won’t know how hard you worked and how much you sacrificed to make it to this day — the countless hours you spent studying to get this diploma, the multiple jobs you worked to pay for school, the times you had to drive home and take care of your grandma, the evenings you gave up to volunteer at a food bank or organize a campus fundraiser. They don’t know that part of you.
Instead they will make assumptions about who they think you are based on their limited notion of the world. And my husband and I know how frustrating that experience can be. We’ve both felt the sting of those daily slights throughout our entire lives — the folks who crossed the street in fear of their safety; the clerks who kept a close eye on us in all those department stores; the people at formal events who assumed we were the “help” — and those who have questioned our intelligence, our honesty, even our love of this country.
And I know that these little indignities are obviously nothing compared to what folks across the country are dealing with every single day — those nagging worries that you’re going to get stopped or pulled over for absolutely no reason; the fear that your job application will be overlooked because of the way your name sounds; the agony of sending your kids to schools that may no longer be separate, but are far from equal; the realization that no matter how far you rise in life, how hard you work to be a good person, a good parent, a good citizen — for some folks, it will never be enough.'
...In the end, Obama delivered a universal message specifically tailored to African American graduates who will go on to do great things for this nation. If that’s “playing the race card,” then we should get the entire deck."
THE WHITE HOUSE BLOG: In Case You Missed It: The First Lady's Powerful Remarks to Tuskegee University's Class of 2015
ALSO:
THE WASHINGTON POST: Michelle Obama’s forceful speech on race at Tuskegee University
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
-INTERLUDE-
BOUND: The Singles, 2013.
08/Pusha T & Kendrick Lamar/Nosetalgia
The crack epidemic, at its height, came thru and straight fucked shit up for many people. At the same time, it gave rise to a generation of youth that saw the anguish of the trials and tribulations that its havoc wreaked on some around them and said, "Nope. Not I. Above it." In just three and a half minutes, Push and Kendrick offer two takes on this history: the block's all knowing & menacing drug lord using drugs and the game to realize his American Dream vs. the knowing little boy trapped in a world of fiends and theives, including those close to him. No hook, just bars, and cinematic in scope. It's a new day, and the script's been flipped. "Now the same shit that y'all was smoking is my profession." "Your son's DOPE, n***a."
Truth.
born slippy.
starring albert hammond, jr.
PITCHFORK: Strokes Guitarist Albert Hammond Jr Announces Solo Album Momentary Masters
PITCHFORK: Strokes Guitarist Albert Hammond Jr Announces Solo Album Momentary Masters
Monday, May 11, 2015
Sunday, May 10, 2015
Saturday, May 09, 2015
Friday, May 08, 2015
Thursday, May 07, 2015
Wednesday, May 06, 2015
Monday, May 04, 2015
the kills.
an ongoing discussion/moment of clarity.
words.
"Talk to people in Baltimore—or Ferguson or Staten Island—and invariably you hear criticism of the police not as the police but as a symbol of an entire web of failed social policies, on education, employment, health, and housing. The real question is not one of police tactics: whether the use of body cameras can reduce civilian complaints or whether police-brutality cases should be handled by independent prosecutors. The real question is what life in an American city should be. The issues extend far beyond the parameters of race, but race is the narrative most easily seized upon. (It’s worth noting our tendency to think of declining, mostly white Rust Belt cities elegiacally, and of largely black ones moralistically.)
Midway through the twentieth century, cities—especially those, like Baltimore, which were sustained by ports—connoted a kind of American swagger. Today, the population of Baltimore is six hundred and twenty-three thousand; in 1950, it was nine hundred and fifty thousand. The Second World War diminished ethnic rivalries among white Americans and, with them, the tribal allotments of urban neighborhoods, but that process was accelerated by the fact that those areas were already becoming less appealing. When, in 1910, a black attorney bought a house on a white block in Baltimore, the Sun reported that the presence of blacks would drive down property values. That helped bring about a city ordinance—the first of its kind—establishing block-by-block segregation. It is generally assumed that white flight was a product of the political tumult and the spiking crime that afflicted American cities in the nineteen-sixties, but it may well have been the other way around. Baltimore, three-quarters white in 1950, is now two-thirds black. As the surrounding suburbs became increasingly white, transportation networks that once connected the city and the outlying county crumbled. Industry and employment relocated to the surrounding areas. By the late sixties, the city was marked by poverty, a persistent lack of opportunity, and violent crime.
...At some point soon, Ferguson, like Baltimore, may have more proportional black representation, but the socioeconomic trends in that city won’t automatically change. Gray died twenty-eight years after Baltimore’s first black mayor took office, yet the statistical realities at the time of his death—a twenty-four-per-cent poverty rate, thirty-seven-per-cent unemployment among young black men—show how complicated and durable the dynamics of race and racism can be. Last week, the cover of Time featured an image of Baltimore aflame, with the year 1968 crossed out and 2015 pencilled in. On social media, split-screen images of the riot that followed King’s death and the one that followed Gray’s proliferated. The temptation is to believe that nothing has changed, but something has: Baltimore is blacker and poorer than it was then. It was not difficult to see who set buildings on fire there last week. The more salient concern is how cities become kindling in the first place."
THE NEW YORKER: City Life: What Racism Has Done to Baltimore
SEE ALSO:
black or white.
words.
"Talk to people in Baltimore—or Ferguson or Staten Island—and invariably you hear criticism of the police not as the police but as a symbol of an entire web of failed social policies, on education, employment, health, and housing. The real question is not one of police tactics: whether the use of body cameras can reduce civilian complaints or whether police-brutality cases should be handled by independent prosecutors. The real question is what life in an American city should be. The issues extend far beyond the parameters of race, but race is the narrative most easily seized upon. (It’s worth noting our tendency to think of declining, mostly white Rust Belt cities elegiacally, and of largely black ones moralistically.)
Midway through the twentieth century, cities—especially those, like Baltimore, which were sustained by ports—connoted a kind of American swagger. Today, the population of Baltimore is six hundred and twenty-three thousand; in 1950, it was nine hundred and fifty thousand. The Second World War diminished ethnic rivalries among white Americans and, with them, the tribal allotments of urban neighborhoods, but that process was accelerated by the fact that those areas were already becoming less appealing. When, in 1910, a black attorney bought a house on a white block in Baltimore, the Sun reported that the presence of blacks would drive down property values. That helped bring about a city ordinance—the first of its kind—establishing block-by-block segregation. It is generally assumed that white flight was a product of the political tumult and the spiking crime that afflicted American cities in the nineteen-sixties, but it may well have been the other way around. Baltimore, three-quarters white in 1950, is now two-thirds black. As the surrounding suburbs became increasingly white, transportation networks that once connected the city and the outlying county crumbled. Industry and employment relocated to the surrounding areas. By the late sixties, the city was marked by poverty, a persistent lack of opportunity, and violent crime.
...At some point soon, Ferguson, like Baltimore, may have more proportional black representation, but the socioeconomic trends in that city won’t automatically change. Gray died twenty-eight years after Baltimore’s first black mayor took office, yet the statistical realities at the time of his death—a twenty-four-per-cent poverty rate, thirty-seven-per-cent unemployment among young black men—show how complicated and durable the dynamics of race and racism can be. Last week, the cover of Time featured an image of Baltimore aflame, with the year 1968 crossed out and 2015 pencilled in. On social media, split-screen images of the riot that followed King’s death and the one that followed Gray’s proliferated. The temptation is to believe that nothing has changed, but something has: Baltimore is blacker and poorer than it was then. It was not difficult to see who set buildings on fire there last week. The more salient concern is how cities become kindling in the first place."
THE NEW YORKER: City Life: What Racism Has Done to Baltimore
SEE ALSO:
black or white.
black or white.
an ongoing discussion/moment of clarity.
words.
"... this past week, you wanted to see the clash between the official story of white America and the actual lived experience of black Americans, you should have watched Fox News.
...White America usually only sees its violence written so plainly on the bodies of black men in sports arenas. We only see the injuries as collateral damage, or as a single festering wound—that part of the city we don’t go to, the part of history we ignore. And Fox News usually is a core part of the apparatus that helps hide that violence—puts a sheet over the body, or dresses it up in mythology and legend. Fox News usually doesn’t show the physical toll of any of the various wars the America is engaged in, unless the injury can be used to justify continuing them.
To be shot to death, in America today, is a tragically clinical media event. It is too common to inspire visceral reaction. It is too ingrained in a narrative of justified force—cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, good guys and bad guys—to summon immediate sympathy.
For white Americans, dying by gunshot means you must have been doing something wrong.
...But a severed spine. A broken neck. The mere repetition of those words conjures queasy fidgeting, and there is no other way to describe what happened to Freddie Gray."
THE DAILY BEAST: Why Fox News Had The Best Baltimore Coverage
SEE ALSO:
the wire.
words.
"... this past week, you wanted to see the clash between the official story of white America and the actual lived experience of black Americans, you should have watched Fox News.
...White America usually only sees its violence written so plainly on the bodies of black men in sports arenas. We only see the injuries as collateral damage, or as a single festering wound—that part of the city we don’t go to, the part of history we ignore. And Fox News usually is a core part of the apparatus that helps hide that violence—puts a sheet over the body, or dresses it up in mythology and legend. Fox News usually doesn’t show the physical toll of any of the various wars the America is engaged in, unless the injury can be used to justify continuing them.
To be shot to death, in America today, is a tragically clinical media event. It is too common to inspire visceral reaction. It is too ingrained in a narrative of justified force—cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, good guys and bad guys—to summon immediate sympathy.
For white Americans, dying by gunshot means you must have been doing something wrong.
...But a severed spine. A broken neck. The mere repetition of those words conjures queasy fidgeting, and there is no other way to describe what happened to Freddie Gray."
THE DAILY BEAST: Why Fox News Had The Best Baltimore Coverage
SEE ALSO:
the wire.
the wire.
an ongoing discussion/moment of clarity.
words.
VICE: So do you see how this ends or how it begins to turn around?
DAVID SIMON: We end the drug war. I know I sound like a broken record, but we end the fucking drug war. The drug war gives everybody permission to do anything. It gives cops permission to stop anybody, to go in anyone's pockets, to manufacture any lie when they get to district court. You sit in the district court in Baltimore and you hear, 'Your Honor, he was walking out of the alley and I saw him lift up the glassine bag and tap it lightly.' No fucking dope fiend in Baltimore has ever walked out of an alley displaying a glassine bag for all the world to see. But it keeps happening over and over in the Western District court. The drug war gives everybody permission. And if it were draconian and we were fixing anything that would be one thing, but it's draconian and it's a disaster.
VICE: When you say, end the drug war, you mean basically decriminalize or stop enforcing?
DAVID SIMON: Medicalize the problem, decriminalize—I don't need drugs to be declared legal, but if a Baltimore State's Attorney told all his assistant state's attorneys today, from this moment on, we are not signing overtime slips for court pay for possession, for simple loitering in a drug-free zone, for loitering, for failure to obey, we're not signing slips for that: Nobody gets paid for that bullshit, go out and do real police work. If that were to happen, then all at once, the standards for what constitutes a worthy arrest in Baltimore would significantly improve. Take away the actual incentive to do bad or useless police work, which is what the drug war has become.
...I mean, I know there are still a good many Baltimore cops who know their jobs and do their jobs with some real integrity and even precision. But if you look at why the city of Baltimore paid that $5.7 million for beating down people over the last few years, it's clear that there are way too many others for whom no code exists. Anyone and everyone was a potential ass-whipping—even people that were never otherwise charged with any real crimes. It's astonishing.
By the standard of that long list, Freddie Gray becomes almost plausible as a victim. He was a street guy. And before he came along, there were actual working people—citizens, taxpayers—who were indistinguishable from criminal suspects in the eyes of the police who were beating them down. Again, that's a department that has a diminished capacity to actually respond to crime or investigate crime, or to even distinguish innocence or guilt. And that comes from too many officers who came up in a culture that taught them not the hard job of policing, but simply how to roam the city, jack everyone up, and call for the wagon."
VICE: David Simon Talks About Where the Baltimore Police Went Wrong
SEE ALSO:
common core.
THE NEW YORKER: Baltimore, Obama, and Clinton: An Agenda Emerges
words.
VICE: So do you see how this ends or how it begins to turn around?
DAVID SIMON: We end the drug war. I know I sound like a broken record, but we end the fucking drug war. The drug war gives everybody permission to do anything. It gives cops permission to stop anybody, to go in anyone's pockets, to manufacture any lie when they get to district court. You sit in the district court in Baltimore and you hear, 'Your Honor, he was walking out of the alley and I saw him lift up the glassine bag and tap it lightly.' No fucking dope fiend in Baltimore has ever walked out of an alley displaying a glassine bag for all the world to see. But it keeps happening over and over in the Western District court. The drug war gives everybody permission. And if it were draconian and we were fixing anything that would be one thing, but it's draconian and it's a disaster.
VICE: When you say, end the drug war, you mean basically decriminalize or stop enforcing?
DAVID SIMON: Medicalize the problem, decriminalize—I don't need drugs to be declared legal, but if a Baltimore State's Attorney told all his assistant state's attorneys today, from this moment on, we are not signing overtime slips for court pay for possession, for simple loitering in a drug-free zone, for loitering, for failure to obey, we're not signing slips for that: Nobody gets paid for that bullshit, go out and do real police work. If that were to happen, then all at once, the standards for what constitutes a worthy arrest in Baltimore would significantly improve. Take away the actual incentive to do bad or useless police work, which is what the drug war has become.
...I mean, I know there are still a good many Baltimore cops who know their jobs and do their jobs with some real integrity and even precision. But if you look at why the city of Baltimore paid that $5.7 million for beating down people over the last few years, it's clear that there are way too many others for whom no code exists. Anyone and everyone was a potential ass-whipping—even people that were never otherwise charged with any real crimes. It's astonishing.
By the standard of that long list, Freddie Gray becomes almost plausible as a victim. He was a street guy. And before he came along, there were actual working people—citizens, taxpayers—who were indistinguishable from criminal suspects in the eyes of the police who were beating them down. Again, that's a department that has a diminished capacity to actually respond to crime or investigate crime, or to even distinguish innocence or guilt. And that comes from too many officers who came up in a culture that taught them not the hard job of policing, but simply how to roam the city, jack everyone up, and call for the wagon."
VICE: David Simon Talks About Where the Baltimore Police Went Wrong
SEE ALSO:
common core.
THE NEW YORKER: Baltimore, Obama, and Clinton: An Agenda Emerges
common core.
a moment of clarity.
words.
"...Gray’s death is part of a tableau of frustration in which the dateline seems increasingly incidental. In the three years since Trayvon Martin’s death, in Sanford, Florida, public attention has been successively directed to Jacksonville, Florida (Jordan Davis), Ferguson, Missouri (Michael Brown), Cleveland, Ohio (Tamir Rice), Chicago, Illinois (Rekia Boyd), Staten Island, New York (Eric Garner), North Charleston, South Carolina (Walter Scott), and Tulsa, Oklahoma (Eric Harris)—a blurred collection of terrible redundancies. Rice was a twelve-year-old boy who was playing with a toy gun in a public park when he was shot by police; Boyd was a bystander, killed when a police officer opened fire on an unarmed man nearby; Gray led police on a foot chase prior to his arrest; Harris allegedly tried to make an illegal handgun sale in the moments before he was shot by a volunteer deputy, who said he thought he was holding his Taser. The Black Lives Matter movement, which has sprung up in the context of these deaths, looks at those disparate stories as sharing a common bond based in race. A too cavalier acceptance of the use of lethal force, even against those who may have committed a crime, serves to make the deaths of people like Boyd and Rice all the more probable.
...A decade ago, Baltimore achieved an undesirable recognition as the birthplace of the “Stop Snitching” movement, which popularized the idea that residents should not coöperate with police when they have information about a crime. The irony has not been lost on those within the city who see the mystery surrounding Gray’s death as a product of a police department unwilling to pronounce its own wrongdoing. The demonstrations on Saturday were mostly peaceful. Still, as the stadium emptied, under a heavy police presence, brushfires of violent protest broke out in the West Baltimore neighborhood where Gray was arrested. The common presumption was that there would likely be more such nights in Baltimore before all was said and done.
The sliver of hope that Baltimore might not fully teeter into bedlam went up along with the neighborhood CVS, the police vehicles, and the buildings that were ignited on Monday. The day began with a plea for a moratorium on protests from Fredricka Gray, Freddie Gray’s twin sister, so that her family might bury her brother in peace. But by the afternoon, there was no peace for Gray’s family, nor any other in the city. On Monday afternoon, the governor of Maryland issued a state of emergency. Flyers for a Saturday rally issued by the Black Lawyers for Justice urged protestors to “shut the city down.” Two days later, the city is a theatre of outrage. The flames leaping into the sky underscored a crucial concern: if the pleas from Freddie Gray’s family could not forestall violence in the streets of Baltimore, the difficult question will be what can prevent more of it."
THE NEW YORKER: Baltimore and the State of American Cities
SEE ALSO:
LOS ANGELES TIMES: Baltimore riots and the long shadow of 1992 Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES TIMES: Antelope Valley deputies must limit backseat detentions, be polite
LOS ANGELES TIMES: Smartphone app from ACLU of California aims to preserve videos of police
words.
"...Gray’s death is part of a tableau of frustration in which the dateline seems increasingly incidental. In the three years since Trayvon Martin’s death, in Sanford, Florida, public attention has been successively directed to Jacksonville, Florida (Jordan Davis), Ferguson, Missouri (Michael Brown), Cleveland, Ohio (Tamir Rice), Chicago, Illinois (Rekia Boyd), Staten Island, New York (Eric Garner), North Charleston, South Carolina (Walter Scott), and Tulsa, Oklahoma (Eric Harris)—a blurred collection of terrible redundancies. Rice was a twelve-year-old boy who was playing with a toy gun in a public park when he was shot by police; Boyd was a bystander, killed when a police officer opened fire on an unarmed man nearby; Gray led police on a foot chase prior to his arrest; Harris allegedly tried to make an illegal handgun sale in the moments before he was shot by a volunteer deputy, who said he thought he was holding his Taser. The Black Lives Matter movement, which has sprung up in the context of these deaths, looks at those disparate stories as sharing a common bond based in race. A too cavalier acceptance of the use of lethal force, even against those who may have committed a crime, serves to make the deaths of people like Boyd and Rice all the more probable.
...A decade ago, Baltimore achieved an undesirable recognition as the birthplace of the “Stop Snitching” movement, which popularized the idea that residents should not coöperate with police when they have information about a crime. The irony has not been lost on those within the city who see the mystery surrounding Gray’s death as a product of a police department unwilling to pronounce its own wrongdoing. The demonstrations on Saturday were mostly peaceful. Still, as the stadium emptied, under a heavy police presence, brushfires of violent protest broke out in the West Baltimore neighborhood where Gray was arrested. The common presumption was that there would likely be more such nights in Baltimore before all was said and done.
The sliver of hope that Baltimore might not fully teeter into bedlam went up along with the neighborhood CVS, the police vehicles, and the buildings that were ignited on Monday. The day began with a plea for a moratorium on protests from Fredricka Gray, Freddie Gray’s twin sister, so that her family might bury her brother in peace. But by the afternoon, there was no peace for Gray’s family, nor any other in the city. On Monday afternoon, the governor of Maryland issued a state of emergency. Flyers for a Saturday rally issued by the Black Lawyers for Justice urged protestors to “shut the city down.” Two days later, the city is a theatre of outrage. The flames leaping into the sky underscored a crucial concern: if the pleas from Freddie Gray’s family could not forestall violence in the streets of Baltimore, the difficult question will be what can prevent more of it."
THE NEW YORKER: Baltimore and the State of American Cities
SEE ALSO:
LOS ANGELES TIMES: Baltimore riots and the long shadow of 1992 Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES TIMES: Antelope Valley deputies must limit backseat detentions, be polite
LOS ANGELES TIMES: Smartphone app from ACLU of California aims to preserve videos of police
fool's gold.
starring jill scott & j dilla.
OKAY PLAYER: Jill Scott Puts The Heartache On A J Dilla Beat w/ New Single “Fools Gold”
OKAY PLAYER: Jill Scott Puts The Heartache On A J Dilla Beat w/ New Single “Fools Gold”
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