41.

I need a JOB, so badly that I could spit blood if someone even offered me an interview. New York is a rough place to be in this regard. My goal for this evening is to crank out a number of different applications before nightfall. Wish me luck/ offer me employment!

So, I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Sean Bell’s homicide. Strange that his death was over a year ago, the police were only recently found not guilty of murder, and there have been “pray-ins” in New York City. Al Sharpton went to jail for being a protester and blocking traffic and he has threatened that there will be more of these pray-ins staged.

I realize it’s a horrible death and that there appears to be no justice. I recognize that it’s, once again, police brutality a la Diallo, and that black victims are always the victims of this sort of violence.

I cant remember the last time I’ve read an article that went: “Middle class white male in suburban home gunned down by police officers who mistook his remote control for a deadly weapon and unloaded 50 bullets into him-”

Thus, watching the news, on channel 9 news, SUDDENLY, there were more black American news anchors on TV in a row than I have seen in my entire life. That includes being in places like Atlanta, Detroit, or even Kansas City (areas typically more diverse than, say, Idaho).

So in some ways, I feel like this is a really good move politically to show power. Congrats.

However, some things are just poorly executed. One professor in my school has ripped apart a piece of large cardboard and covered her office’s window with a sign that says “Justice for the Bell Family” scrawled in Permanent marker. Other people shown on the news were saying things like “50 bullets is just too much;” as if 1 really well placed bullet is enough?! or sufficient?

At least that individual was out in the streets, though, marching, protesting, shutting down traffic and getting arrested.

The sign is really just sort of stupid.

This, however, puts an interesting tweak on the intersection between technology and law enforcement, which might also be vaguely more productive. CLICK HERE

In essence, be part of a solution, not a greater part of a problem and you’re contributing. But to focus on the problem alone as if that is sufficient is uncalled for. It only does so much, and makes the work of those who go out to actually take to the streets that much harder because they’re not being supported.

Still, I get the gesture.

…

It is what it is.

Still there are other aspects of what’s going on that need to be addressed as well:

Race is a social construct. It’s not to say that it’s not ‘real,’ but only that we define this continually as a culture. So already we walk into territory which is fraught with overburdened terms, histories, conflicts, and connections which are automatically triggered whenever anyone of a specific group is the victim of a heinous crime.

Is humanizing such a horrible thing?

In other ways it seems like divisiveness is the greatest harm for all of us and that these definitions often help to re-entrench the distinctions.

So in another, sense, I guess, my professor was right too.

Justice should be the unifying force.

Ethics Committee, gimme somethin’.

A Nonymous