Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

The lights are all blinking red.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

We still have time to mess this up!

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

You are here: Home / Open Threads / A Rap Video That’s About Something? UNPOSSIBLE.

A Rap Video That’s About Something? UNPOSSIBLE.

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So you may have heard about the harassment of negroes and hispanics by police officers before. In New York City they’ve given it a fancy brand name and call it “Stop and Frisk” — but ask many people of color and they’ll tell you they’ve dealt with it for years. In the current trial about the policy the sitting judge weighed in yesterday

“A lot of people are being frisked or searched on suspicion of having a gun and nobody has a gun,” Judge Scheindlin, of Federal District Court in Manhattan, said on Monday during closing arguments in the trial. “So the point is: the suspicion turns out to be wrong in most of the cases.”

Say what?

You mean targeting brown and black folks and getting it wrong 90% of the time is a bad thing? That’s just madness. Between that and the recent NYPD statistics showing that the incredibly necessary practice of Stop and Frisk which keeps everyone so safe had dropped 50% and by some sort of black magic (get it?) crime also dropped.

MADNESS I say.

So in an effort to call shenanigans to all of this and raise awareness of the problematic practice I put out an open call to artists, activists, lawmakers, and anyone who agreed this is a problem. I was joined by Pittsburgh rapper Jasiri X and Florida artist (who produced the track) Willie Evans Jr. and a bunch of personalities like NY Times best seller Baratunde Thurston, Daily Show Co-Creator Lizz Winstead, New York Councilman Jumaane Williams and many more. Check out the finished product and let me know what you think. And if you enjoy it please feel free to share the holy crap out of it. We’re hoping to make it clear that this sort of harassment is never okay.

Reader Interactions

33Comments

  1. 1.

    karen

    It definitely gets the message across.

    “Totally Biased” was talking about “Stop and Frisk” last week, have you thought of submitting this video to W. Kamau Bell?

  3. 3.

    mxh

    Goofus gives extra scrutiny to groups opposed to taxes to see if they’re violating tax laws. Gallant stops and frisks young black and Hispanic men because, I mean, come on.

  4. 4.

    kindness

    If Stop and Frisk was happening along Park Avenue to old blue haired ladies or Wall Street to the Finance Sector grifters the program would have been over that very first day.

    But the program targeted poor minority kids so no one cared.

  6. 6.

    geg6

    Judge Scheidlin? Is that Judge Judy’s hubby? I wouldn’t fuck with him if it is.

    Oh, and I’m glad to see a ‘Burgh rapper standing up for justice. I’m sharing as we speak.

  7. 7.

    Calming Influence

    “A lot of people are being frisked or searched on suspicion of having a gun and nobody has a gun,”

    Not that I want to put my lily-white ass in a holding cell (“Yeee-ouch!”), but maybe it’s time they started picking a different color.

  9. 9.

    scav

    “suspicion of having a gun”? Should’t the NRA be all over this slur against gun-carrying patriots? Where oh where can they be?

  10. 10.

    MattR

    @kindness:

    But the program targeted poor minority kids so no one cared.

    I would go a step farther than simply not caring and say that people approved.

  12. 12.

    Punchy

    Imagine if we mixed Texas’ (and soon to be 15-ish other states’) extremely liberal CnC and open-carry laws with solid SYG legy (like FLs) and then threw in NYC Stop All N#ggers policy. Im guessin you’d have more dead cops and confused but innocent shooters than the morgue could handle.

  14. 14.

    'Niques

    @scav: Just, wow. So, while this Shit is going on, white people are encouraged to open carry everywhere they go. Wow.

  15. 15.

    MikeJ

    @Dacia: Thanks for assuming I was going for friendly teasing like some of us do around here, and not being a tremendous asshat, which some of us do around here.

  17. 17.

    Alex in NYC

    @geg6: Unrelated to Judge Judy, and if she were, it would be her wife — Scheindlin is a woman too.

  21. 21.

    Lurking Canadian

    @‘Niques: Well, there’d be no need to frisk anyone if everybody was open carrying. As always, the answer is MOAR GUNZ.

  22. 22.

    Roger Moore

    @Lurking Canadian:

    Well, there’d be no need to frisk anyone if everybody was open carrying.

    Yup. Then the cops could just open fire without having to stop and ask questions.

  23. 23.

    RSA

    the incredibly necessary practice of Stop and Frisk which keeps everyone white people thinking they’re so safe

    Not that this edit is needed, but it came to mind.

  24. 24.

    Chris

    So you may have heard about the harassment of negroes and hispanics by police officers before

    One of the earliest clues that conservatives were really, really, really disconnected from reality I ever had was when I was watching the second Men in Black movie with my extremely Heartlandist cousin as a teenager, and actually had to explain the “it came with a black dude, but he kept getting pulled over” joke.

  25. 25.

    SiubhanDuinne

    So you may have heard about the harassment of negroes and hispanics by police officers before. In New York City they’ve given it a fancy brand name and call it “Stop and Frisk” — but ask many people of color and they’ll tell you they’ve dealt with it for years.

    Bob Herbert used to write about this* ALL.THE.TIME., and he left the NYTimes at least two years ago.

    *ETA: Maybe he still does. I used to admire him very much. But he used to be a regular guest on MSNBC’s “Countdown,” and then Olbermann got fired, and then Herbert quit the NYT (or maybe in the other order), and I’ve lost track of him.

  27. 27.

    Cassidy

    I’d buy the single. Shit, you put together an album with some solid tracks like that and donate the proceeds to a social justice defense fund, I’ll be buying it up for Christmas gifts.

  28. 28.

    'Niques

    @Roger Moore: Feature. It’s a racist’s dream. I simply cannot express my disgust. We should have come so much farther as a species.

  29. 29.

    Elon James White

    @Cassidy:

    I’d buy the single. Shit, you put together an album with some solid tracks like that and donate the proceeds to a social justice defense fund, I’ll be buying it up for Christmas gifts.

    Well the single is available in all major digital music stores. The proceeds are currently going to making sure we can do stuff like that. TWiB! isn’t funded by anyone besides the listeners and my sad wallet. Apparently Indie Media is NOT where you get rich at. NOBODY TOLD ME! I’m actually working with the producer of the track (Willie Evans Jr.) on a bigger project we’ve affectionately named the “Brunch and Blackness Mixtape” Who knows what else is coming. ;-)

    Itunes — http://twib.me/friskremix

  31. 31.

    RubberCrutch

    Hey, kids. Stop-and-frisk ain’t a fancy new brand name. The term goes back to at least the ’60s in Chicagoland, according to my very own memory. But, yes, it meant the same thing back then that it means today. At least back then, when I was in high school, the concept was considered controversial even by mainstream liberals.

  32. 32.

    mclaren

    It’s not the War On Terror or the War On Drugs or the War On Crime — it’s the War On Brown People.

    Just the same old Jim Crow laws by another means.

    And it’s not just me saying that. Law professor Michelle Alexander’s book “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” made that case last year, and it’s become a bestseller since then.

    Professor Alexander, who is black, knew that African-Americans were overrepresented in prison, though she resisted the idea that this was anything more than unequal implementation of colorblind laws. But her work as director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Racial Justice Project in Northern California, she said, opened her eyes to the extent of the lifelong exclusion many offenders face, including job discrimination, elimination from juries and voter rolls, and even disqualification from food stamps, public housing and student loans.

    “It’s easy to be completely unaware that this vast new system of racial and social control has emerged,” she said. “Unlike in Jim Crow days, there were no ‘Whites Only’ signs. This system is out of sight, out of mind.”

    Source: “Drug Policy as Race Policy: Best Seller Galvanizes the Debate,” The New York Times, 6 March 2012.

  33. 33.

    Cassidy

    @Elon James White: Gangstagrass has shown that a hip hop collective with heavy social justice themes can be successful. Does TWiB see itself pursuing that kind of model?

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