Lisa Leslie Speaks

[j66kicker]

Dear America | By Lisa Leslie

An injustice to one race is an injustice to all races.

www.theplayerstribune.com

 

[Jmsdawg]

Dear America | By Lisa Leslie

An injustice to one race is an injustice to all races.

www.theplayerstribune.com

That is one hell of a letter! I am not black but I am old enough that I saw many of the thing she is talking about and I thought those times were behind us. However, I am very concerned we may not have progressed as far as I hoped. I too am tired of inequality due to race, religion, gender, and economic status. LISA, I AM WITH YOU,

 

[EricLA]

Very well written. As a white guy who has never had to deal with being judged by the color of my skin, I'm ashamed at how far we still have to go for equality. In 2020.

I live in a predominately minority area in Los Angeles. I was shocked and horrified to learn that my neighbors actually have to teach their children of color "how to survive being pulled over by the police". I can't even imagine how bad it must be in the south. I don't have answers. But I'm frustrated and tired of it.

 

[j66kicker]

Very well written. As a white guy who has never had to deal with being judged by the color of my skin, I'm ashamed at how far we still have to go for equality. In 2020.

I live in a predominately minority area in Los Angeles. I was shocked and horrified to learn that my neighbors actually have to teach their children of color "how to survive being pulled over by the police". I can't even imagine how bad it must be in the south. I don't have answers. But I'm frustrated and tired of it.

Some well-known black athletes on talk radio a couple years ago called it getting pulled over for "DWB" (Driving While Black). Said generally the white cops would back off and turn nice as soon as they recognized their celebrity faces (either thinking, "Oh that's cool - he's a star football player" or, "Yikes, 1.5 million twitter followers - this isn't going to end well.")

I used to live in LA. Well-earned bad reputation on race issue. Watts Riots, Rodney King, Police Chief Darryl Gates. It's real.

 

[Plebe]

Very well written. As a white guy who has never had to deal with being judged by the color of my skin, I'm ashamed at how far we still have to go for equality. In 2020.

I live in a predominately minority area in Los Angeles. I was shocked and horrified to learn that my neighbors actually have to teach their children of color "how to survive being pulled over by the police". I can't even imagine how bad it must be in the south. I don't have answers. But I'm frustrated and tired of it.

I've lived a lot of places around the country, and the police treatment of Blacks and Latinos is definitely not any less fraught outside the south. A lot of the most notorious police brutality cases have occurred in northern, midwestern, and western states.

 

[Jmsdawg]

I've lived a lot of places around the country, and the police treatment of Blacks and Latinos is definitely not any less fraught outside the south. A lot of the most notorious police brutality cases have occurred in northern, midwestern, and western states.

I may be in an unusual neighborhood for the South but I do not see a lot of racism here, I have Black neighbors all around and to me they are just neighbors. The folks most discriminated against here are the homeless, most folks consider them less than desirable.

 

[eebmg]

I may be in an unusual neighborhood for the South but I do not see a lot of racism here, I have Black neighbors all around and to me they are just neighbors. The folks most discriminated against here are the homeless, most folks consider them less than desirable.

Guessing homeless people do not fear for their safety if a cop stops them at 2 AM in the morning driving a nice car.

 

[Jmsdawg]

Guessing homeless people do not fear for their safety if a cop stops them at 2 AM in the morning driving a nice car.

Must admit I do not know much about police misbehavior. I do know a number of Blacks and have never had discussions with them about cops. I really do not know any homeless but I have seen their plight. Wish we could solve both issues but we have so many problems I would be satisfied if we just gave a decent effort solving any of them.

 

[eebmg]

Must admit I do not know much about police misbehavior. I do know a number of Blacks and have never had discussions with them about cops. I really do not know any homeless but I have seen their plight. Wish we could solve both issues but we have so many problems I would be satisfied if we just gave a decent effort solving any of them.

A big part of the problem is when we try to blur institutional man-made injustices within a
pile of other societal ills whose origins are often limited resource (or act of god) induced.

 

[garddog]

I've lived a lot of places around the country, and the police treatment of Blacks and Latinos is definitely not any less fraught outside the south. A lot of the most notorious police brutality cases have occurred in northern, midwestern, and western states.

It isn't just police brutality. I have lived and traveled all over the US. There is racism everywhere, from all sides, but I have seen less in the South. Most people try to give the South and especially MS a bad name and it was deserved 50 to 60 years ago. My generation grew up in an integrated society that is 50% minority. I played sports, went to school and hung out with everyone. My parents generation, not so.

I have had conversations with them about how they speak and most of the time they get it, but it is still ingrained from childhood.

I have other family members and friends that live up north and out west that grew up in areas where the racial split is 85% or higher white. They give lip service but I have caught them being more racist than my parents generation. If you grow up in an area where its predominantly one race, the small minority conforms, there isn't a cultural mixing.

 

[Bigboote]

Some well-known black athletes on talk radio a couple years ago called it getting pulled over for "DWB" (Driving While Black).

20-25 years ago I lived in a poorer, more dense area than I do now (both in the DC suburbs in Maryland, euphemistically called the "Free State"). I had a 12-mile commute to work. I saw people pulled over for DWB (which includes brown) probably a half-dozen times a month. It was a real eye-opener. I never saw a caucasian person spread-eagled across his hood.

 

[triaddukefan]

Some well-known black athletes on talk radio a couple years ago called it getting pulled over for "DWB" (Driving While Black).

This reminds me of an article in the New York Times a few years ago about a study they did on my city that appeared on the front page of the paper.

The Disproportionate Risks of Driving While Black.

Here in North Carolina’s third-largest city, officers pulled over African-American drivers for traffic violations at a rate far out of proportion with their share of the local driving population. They used their discretion to search black drivers or their cars more than twice as often as white motorists — even though they found drugs and weapons significantly more often when the driver was white.

Officers were more likely to stop black drivers for no discernible reason. And they were more likely to use force if the driver was black, even when they did not encounter physical resistance.


I remember about 20 years ago... I was driving home from work late one night.... and a policeman followed me home for maybe a mile..... finally stopped me right in front of my house. A little backstory......here in NC you have to get your car inspected once a year... and they put a little sticker on the vehicle tag on the back of your car... anyway... I had failed to get it inspected in due time.... so I knew why the cop was following me... but man.... he must have had good eye-sight to spot my tag Anyway..... he explained why he pulled me over.... and let me off without a ticket..... i think he just gave me a citation to my car inspected within 15 days or something. I tell you what.... it was Christmas time....but I was sweating up a storm seeing that Police car behind me.

Anyway... as a response to the NY Times survey.... the Police Department halted initiating traffic stops based on minor infractions such as burned out head or taillights. Even though the policy has changed... I still make sure as soon as I have a burned out light... im off to autozone or advance to get a bulb replacement.

 

[triaddukefan]

It isn't just police brutality. I have lived and traveled all over the US. There is racism everywhere, from all sides, but I have seen less in the South. Most people try to give the South and especially MS a bad name and it was deserved 50 to 60 years ago. My generation grew up in an integrated society that is 50% minority. I played sports, went to school and hung out with everyone. My parents generation, not so.

I have had conversations with them about how they speak and most of the time they get it, but it is still ingrained from childhood.

I have other family members and friends that live up north and out west that grew up in areas where the racial split is 85% or higher white. They give lip service but I have caught them being more racist than my parents generation. If you grow up in an area where its predominantly one race, the small minority conforms, there isn't a cultural mixing.

I'll have to ask my father about the differences in the North and the South back in the 60s. Of course he grew up in the Jim Crow south.... but went up North (Connecticut and Pennslyvania) for work and school.

 

[Plebe]

Lest we make the fatal mistake of leaping from anecdote to generalization, it might be instructive to review a list of the 25 most segregated cities, from a study released last year.

Just barely over half (14) of the listed cities are in southern states, but it's interesting to note that many of the southern locales listed are smaller cities (Pine Bluff AR, Albany GA, etc.), whereas nearly all of the non-southern locales are large cities (Detroit, Chicago, etc.).

Detroit, Chicago, Memphis: The 25 most segregated cities in America

24/7 Wall St. calculated the percentage of black residents who live in predominantly black census tracts to identify the most segregated cities.

www.usatoday.com

 

[garddog]

Here is another list from an independent website with no political affiliation.
Not one southern city on the list.

Most Racist Cities in America 2024

Here is another article from The Atlantic about Portland, Oregon.

The Racist History of Portland, the Whitest City in America

It’s known as a modern-day hub of progressivism, but its past is one of exclusion.

www.theatlantic.com

Here is another from the Boston Globe on Boston, MA.

Boston. Racism. Image. Reality: The Spotlight Team takes on our hardest question

The Globe’s Spotlight Team confronts one of Boston’s most vexing issues — racism — in a seven-part series that examines the city’s pervasive and persistent national image as a place unwelcoming to black people. Spotlight attempts to answer an important question: Is this reputation still deserved?

apps.bostonglobe.com

Lots of examples out there for what I have seen in my travels.