really quick hits. I know I'm starting to repeat myself but, hey:
1. why do you need to point out that most of the looters in Ferguson, with a majority black population, are also black? The majority of soccer players have two legs - what a fuckin revelation. Is there a larger point you are trying to make by pointing out the painfully obvious? I'm asking.
2. Why does it matter the
And you are completely silent on the huge (what, 99.9%?) majority of dark-skinned people who did not participate in the looting. Let me ask you a direct question: would you think it fair if I shunned all white people for the actions of a few Wall Street bankers?
You are directly contradicting your earlier quote from Dr. King. White people criticize black people all the time in this country, but they don't start off with, "well, this BLACK guy cut me off in traffic today," and thus no one calls them racist for it. Would it be fair if I held all white people responsible for reality television? Or the Iraq War?
Why define them by skin color in the first place? If I say most pedophiles (or Wall Street crooks, or members of the NHL) are white men that is needlessly prejudicial on the millions of white men who don't do those things.
Why can't you say looter without saying "black" looter? It really isn't so hard.
Thinking that someone who looks differently than you does not have all the complexity and rich inner-life that you have is, generally speaking, de-humanizing, which is the worst kind of racism there is.
ps:do you take credit, as a white person, when Bill Gates makes a billion dollars? The opposite applies.
Like, literally. Since the great majority of the people of Ferguson, MO did not loot (and the great majority of Ferguson are not criminals of any sort), and as you helpfully provided, the majority of Ferguson is black, it does not follow that the defining characteristic of the looters is their blackness. This is basic logic, no education required.
"Anyone who thinks that race does not still, even if inadvertently, skew the application of criminal justice in this country is just not paying close enough attention. Our prisons are full of black and brown men and women who are serving inappropriately long and harsh sentences for non-violent mistakes in their youth."
Cops are there to protect the public, not shoot suspects in non-violent crimes (and it's important to note that the cop (Darren Wilson) had no idea Michael Brown was a suspect for anything except jaywalking, according to Wilson's own chain of command).
If our government, if our society wants to execute jaywalkers then we should let the courts handle that. If it's open season on
But it was (obviously) miles away. I think the full-on sci-fi dystopia (in which that cool front-mounted cannon is pointed at _me_) is at least 50 years away, and I plan to be dead by then.
Chills. I've never been in serious trouble (although I have been arrested), but as a student of history I know "stop resisting" is too often followed by "paid administrative leave."
Seriously. Raising awareness and all that. The cops are supposed to be de-escalating situations like these, not staging shows of force with body armor and snipers and shit. I hope whoever made that call loses his job, for being really fucking bad at his job, even if his literal title is "Fascist Police State Commander."
If only a tiny bit, this fuckery in Ferguson set back the cause
but seriously, I do enjoy everything I've read of Raymond Chandler (whom I called Dashiell Hammett on Jeopardy!, to my continuing shame), and Dashiell Hammett, and a bit more modern, Walter Mosley and Elmore Lenoard.
ps: the movies adapted from their works are generally good as well
Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson. Not sure how it would play on audiobook (mostly because of the long passages of intricate description of the Martian surface, from the POV of the scientist-colonists) but the reading was fun.
If you set out to make an RP-focused character, and you wind up 'sucessful' (meaning lot of friends, lots of kills, lots of "impact") you will get stuff. Lots of stuff. But it does not happen instantly.
Take a breath.