Weird News

[sexobon]

A former Obama White House aide and candidate for Congress in Maryland’s 8th District goes public with arrest record:

What Makes Black Men Run From the Police?

... I know why. I am a black man, and I have been arrested. I am also a husband and father of three, a lawyer, a former White House aide and now a candidate for Congress.

The police made a mistake, as humans inevitably do. It was a little more than a decade ago, when I was in my early 20s and well on my way toward a promising career. I was in a car with some friends and fellow law-school classmates when, as a thoughtless prank—the sort that tends to hang over from adolescence—one of them shouted an obscene comment at a woman on the street. That woman turned out to be an undercover police officer.

Let me state that what he did was wrong, and completely out of character; but, of course, I had no idea of his intended actions, nor did I have control over them. We were all arrested, and in the end, the charges were dropped and the record of my arrest was eventually expunged.

I knew at the time, and I suppose I could have assured myself, that it was all a mistake and that the police would accept the truth of my innocence. But as difficult as it is for me to admit, when the police officer confronted me, I thought about running, too. I wasn’t having a bad day, I didn’t have an outstanding warrant and I knew I had done nothing wrong. But I also knew that arrest—not conviction, but a single arrest—could severely imperil my future right then and there. Suddenly, despite my success in life, I could see myself becoming yet another black man swallowed by our elaborate criminal-justice system—another statistic. ...

... Until now I have never disclosed any of this to anyone other than close friends and family. And I expect that some who know me (and many others who don’t) will see me differently after reading this piece. But I would ask them, when did I cease to be human? Am I not the son, husband and father of three, attorney or former White House aide I was before you knew this about me? ...

Yebbut, why now?

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by sexobon

Yebbut, why now?

I suppose it's as the man says in the last paragraphs...

My sincere hope is that by lifting my voice, I will encourage others to do the same.
The statistics tell us that there are many of us who have similar testimonies about
what our nation’s heavy-handed approach to criminal justice is doing to
communities of color and society at large.

Right now we find ourselves at a critical moment in history.
We stand at the precipice of passing the most sweeping
bipartisan criminal-justice reform legislation in a generation.
But it won’t happen if this is seen as a problem for “them,”
as opposed to all of us. Democracy is what got us into this mess,
but I’m confident that democracy can help alleviate it and
bring us markedly closer to our country’s highest ideals in the process.