Richard Pryor Gets the Last Laugh in Peoria Richard Pryor used his birth place, Peoria, as a prop for biting comedy about American racism. Now the only memorial to Pryor in this town is a street sign, but the sculptor Preston Jackson is changing that. In the town that Pryor talked about, dr[...]
Posts Tagged ‘bad cities and towns’
October 5th, 2014 - 5:33 pm § in America
Book Review: America’s Gulags
America has places that resemble police states, but most Americans don’t notice, because these conditions — a mix of KGB-style surveillance and third world-style tinpot tyranny — mostly exist in poor minority neighborhoods. Places that middle class Americans don’t visit, do[...]
October 1st, 2014 - 12:41 pm § in Misc.
ACLU sues Yakima for excluding Hispanics from city council
A lawsuit filed by the ACLU against the city of Yakima on behalf of Hispanic voters is working its way through a federal court. The Seattle Times reported when the lawsuit was filed in 2012 that “Yakima has more than 91,000 residents, and its population is 41 percent Hispanic. No Latino has ev[...]
September 30th, 2014 - 4:11 pm § in Misc.
A Job For Jenny Durkan
Jenny Durkan, the current U.S. Attorney for Western Washington, appears to be a serious candidate to replace Eric Holder as Attorney General. If she gets the nod, and I hope she will, one of her first and top priorities should be cleaning up St. Louis County, which recent news coverage has reveale[...]
September 29th, 2014 - 9:44 am § in Misc.
Ferguson Gouging The Media For Public Records
We’ve already learned that Ferguson’s city hall routinely shakes down black residents with a corrupt system of ticket-happy cops and fine-gouging municipal courts, and that Michael Brown was killed when he tried to walk away from a cop trying to write him a jaywalking ticket that likely [...]
September 24th, 2014 - 12:32 pm § in Misc.
It’s now a crime to be a spastic in Granville, West Virginia
This is another horror story about stupid violent cops. (They seem endless these days.) A 39-year-old disabled man was making his way on a sidewalk in Granville, W.Va., with his two young children, one in a stroller and carrying the other in his arm, in the jerky fashion characteristic of people [...]
September 14th, 2014 - 2:47 pm § in Misc.
Even celebrities get profiled and harassed by L.A.’s racist cops
Actress Danielle Watts, who is black, kissed her boyfriend — celebrity chef Brian Lucas aka Cheffy Be*Live — in public. It got them arrested by Los Angeles cops who assumed any black woman who kisses a white man must be a prostitute. http://handbill.us/wp-admin/post-new.php This will b[...]
September 9th, 2014 - 8:27 am § in Misc.
America’s corrupt small towns and their predatory shakedown rackets
Are you leery of small town cops? For many people, the phrase provokes nervous jitters about speed traps, police harassment, etc. When Michael Brown was gunned down by a Ferguson cop last month, he was in all likelihood walking away from a jaywalking ticket. He probably got mouthy, and may have scuf[...]
September 8th, 2014 - 6:06 pm § in Misc.
Shot By A Tax Collector
Traffic fines are Ferguson, Missouri’s second-largest source of municipal revenue. Municipal court day features a white judge, a white prosecutor, and numerous black residents lined up to pay fines. “We’re just used to raise revenue,” said Patricia Bynes, a Democratic committeewoman for Fe[...]
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