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Author Topic:   You Can't Fix What You Don't See
BellaFenice
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posted April 30, 2015 01:20 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for BellaFenice     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Eh, this could go anywhere because it covers a wide variety of themes, but it is no more political than the Vietnam War hero story below. Very thought provoking.

Last night I followed the Baltimore riots, transfixed on Twitter until the early hours of the morning. Eerily reminiscent of what played out in Ferguson not long ago, the bitterness and the despair spilled into violence, and I watched as too many tried to explain it away as the callous actions of irresponsible “hoodlums.”
“There’s a war between the ones who say there is a war and the ones who say there isn’t,” sings Leonard Cohen, and those lyrics were my soundtrack as I watched Baltimore police hurl rocks at rioters and kettle school-aged children, and heard appeals for peace and calm made to people who have watched too many young black men die at the hands of those who are paid to protect them.

Those plastering pictures of Martin Luther King’s non-violent protests on social media, as a contrast to last night's looting and destruction, are missing the point.

King’s non-violence has been played up in recent years as he heads toward deification. But, as Ta-Nehisi Coates reminded us on a recent trip to Montreal, “No one should think emancipation in America happened non-violently.” Criticizing the hypocrisy of those looking down at protesters as hoodlums and not as people who’ve reached the breaking point, Coates said then, “Whiteness is the right to plunder, and then to wag my finger at the people I’m plundering.”

Freddie Gray’s spine was severed while he was in police custody, and the Baltimore man died a week later. While the six police officers involved in his death are on paid leave, we still don’t know why he was arrested and why he did not get medical attention in time. Meanwhile suburban white America is pearl-clutching over the destruction of… property?

Gray’s death comes on the heels of well-publicized national cases of brutality where police officers have shot and killed unarmed black individuals with absolutely no legal repercussions. They have been videotaped planting evidence beside a dead body and choking a person to death. The city of Baltimore has paid more than $5.7 million since 2011 to settle police brutality suits, yet last night appeals were made for calm. How does one remain calm when the dam breaks, when the injustice of it all hits like a tidal wave wiping away everything in its wake?

Martin Luther King may be used as an example of peaceful protests, but he also said this: “It is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear?”

Last night’s events were a symptom, not the disease. They resulted precisely from ongoing and relentless systemic racism. To be surprised and shocked by Ferguson and Baltimore means you haven’t been paying attention.

And all those calls for peace? They ring hollow. As Coates wrote yesterday, “When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor yelling ‘time-out!’ it exposes itself as a ruse.”

This desire to label rioters as “thugs” looking for any excuse to destroy and defy authority extends past Baltimore and enters most political protests. I think of Quebec and the relentless austerity protests and the student strikes that recently turned destructive at UQAM.

The glee with which Journal de Montreal columnist Denise Bombardier wrote about the denial of bail for UQAM student activist Hamza Babou was disturbing. No matter how one feels about the legitimacy of student protests, a columnist for Quebec’s most widely read daily rejoicing at our legal system’s administration of unconstitutional pretrial punitive damage as moral punishment is horrifying.

Echoing the same privilege and sentiments in Bombardier’s column, a piece by Sun columnist Kate Hopkins compared immigrants to cockroaches hours before a fishing vessel packed with migrants capsized off the coast of Libya. The death toll has climbed to 1,000 and includes hundreds of women and children, many of whom had been locked away by smugglers.

In these three examples is a deep lack of interest in understanding why people in Baltimore have resorted to rioting, why Quebec’s university students have been protesting so loudly and for so long, and why migrants would risk their lives to reach another country.

Some people are content to criticize the tip of the iceberg without any inclination to comprehend the immensity of the massive hunk of glacier hidden beneath the surface. Underestimating that immensity has sunk ships before. But like Senegalese author Fatou Diom recently said about the migration crisis and Europe’s hypocrisy in dealing with it, “We will be rich together, or we will drown together.”

Half a century ago, U.S. novelist James Baldwin wrote, “To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.”

Fifty years after the U.S. Civil Rights movement the sentiment resonates still.

Riots don’t just happen. To dismiss them as nothing more than opportunistic mayhem and destruction is to discard the truth and delegitimize the anger that rises from the harsh realization of deeply ingrained inequality.

You can’t fix what you can’t see. And you can’t see it without an honest attempt.

https://ricochet.media/en/421/if-youre-surprised-by-the-baltimore-riot s-you-havent-been-paying-attention

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SaturnFan
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posted April 30, 2015 08:41 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for SaturnFan     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Well said Bella!

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Catalina
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posted April 30, 2015 02:37 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Catalina     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote

Perhaps the whole thing was manufactured and not really as its been portrayed
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/04/how-baltimore-riots-began-mondawmin-purge]http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/04/how-baltimore-riots-began-mondawmin-purge

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BellaFenice
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posted April 30, 2015 05:21 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for BellaFenice     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Thanks Saturn! All credit goes to the author though!

Catalina, thanks for the article! The school bus children situation I think was something I mentioned in one of these threads. That really upset me, because the police handled it very wrong- why put the schoolchildren right into the thick of things.

Did any of you hear about Whole Foods and Five Guys donating food to the national guard and troops? Here is my issue with it: Baltimore schools were closed, and the majority of kids only received lunch through the free or reduced lunch program. So we let kids starve but feed the troops? Community centers and churches luckily stepped up so the kids could have something to eat.

But still-the priorities are skewed.

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BellaFenice
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posted May 01, 2015 07:22 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for BellaFenice     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
UPDATE!!!!!

This is huge and a great step forward! Hopefully they are convicted. I will not celebrate until then. I have some faith in humanity left.

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Randall
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posted May 01, 2015 07:40 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Randall     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
This is how justice is handled properly. Not by throwing bricks through windows and then stealing. Those six officers will go to prison. The looters are criminals and should go to prison also. Using the wrongful death of a young man as an excuse to steal is a repugnant concept. The looters don't care about the issues at hand. Peaceful protests are one thing. Committing terroristic acts is quite another.

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Valentine
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posted May 02, 2015 02:10 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Valentine     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I agree with what you said Randall. Hopefully justice will be done. The protesters tactics are criminal.

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BellaFenice
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posted May 02, 2015 06:51 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for BellaFenice     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Here is some more interesting info behind the scenes I didn't have time earlier to add:

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BellaFenice
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posted May 02, 2015 06:54 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for BellaFenice     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
We praise those who go to Iraq, but we condemn looters? Some citizens complain we need to exercise our rights for guns that have led to so many unnecessary murders are the same upset over bricks being thrown?

Another question, when predominantly white populations vandalize after sporting events, is that terrorism as well?

We need to be a little careful of using the definition of terrorism, because technically we could say the same thing for the thousands of innocent blacks killed by the police each year. That is a far better fit of terrorism than pringles getting stolen out of CVS.

Think about it.

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BellaFenice
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posted May 02, 2015 07:02 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for BellaFenice     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/28/black-republican-senator-on-baltimore-riots-if-you-re-hopeless-you-destroy-your-communities.html

A good read and perspective.

There aren’t many power players on Capitol Hill who know what it’s like to grow up poor and black. Senator Tim Scott opens up about his past, and how it matches today’s Baltimore.


Of all the lawmakers in the Senate, Republican Senator Tim Scott is the best positioned to understand what is happening in the minds of the rioters and looters in Baltimore this week. He’s one of the rare politicians to actually understand what it’s like to grow up young, black and male.


“I won’t say I can understand [the looters] specifically. But generically, I certainly understand what a hapless, hopeless person does. You create chaos because you’re living in chaos… if you’re hopeless you do things that seem absolutely inconsistent with logic. You destroy your own communities,” Scott said.

Like the young West Baltimore high schoolers who sought out violence as a means to vent frustrations against law enforcement, Scott grew up in poverty in North Charleston, South Carolina. He flunked out of high school as a freshman—something he doubts any of his fellow senators have. He buried two of his closest friends in his 20s. Another sought a fast way to cash through drugs and spent 85 months in a federal penitentiary.


“It appears that my personal experience, fortunately and unfortunately, matches the devastations that we’re seeing around the country right now. And that’s a unique experience here on Capitol Hill,” Scott said Tuesday evening, as the National Guard descended upon Charm City to restore order.

He continued, “Hapless and hopeless people seem to reside in areas of high unemployment, low educational performances, and steeped in poverty. Having been one of the kids that I’m talking about, and having lived in some challenging situations and circumstances… I think I get it.”

He has no easy answer to the chaos and the looting and the violence that threatens Baltimore, except that Congress needs to seriously address the “systemic nature of poverty.”
“I certainly understand what a hapless, hopeless person does. You create chaos because you’re living in chaos… if you’re hopeless you do things that seem absolutely inconsistent with logic. You destroy your own communities.”

Scott has been championing what he calls an “opportunity agenda” to address the root causes of poverty, something a lot of Republicans pay lip service to but rarely work on in practice.
“From my perspective, we do need to look at it from a root-up approach. One of the reasons I’ve championed the opportunity agenda through the last several years in Congresses… hapless, hopeless people don’t do well in school… in the poor ZIP Codes, they too often have under-performing schools,” Scott said, plugging his support of school choice. “You look for the DNA of hope—it starts with the magic of education.”


So he’s offered amendments on school choice, workforce readiness, and apprentice programs. “There is no way around it. This is ground zero for the fight around poverty,” he said. But perhaps like the impoverished looters in Baltimore—no one is listening… until there’s drama.


“I have stayed on the opportunity agenda,” he said. But he “can’t get anyone to pay attention to it, except when the crisis occurs… Is there any frustration that we haven’t moved faster? Yeah.”


Most recently, Scott has requested a hearing that he expects will take place in early June, to discuss federal body camera laws, and the possibility of providing federal grants so that local law enforcement can purchase the cameras. (He does not support federal, mandatory body camera laws, however.)


He ticks off the statistics of body camera technology: Body cameras lead to a 90 percent drop in complaints against law enforcement officials, and a 60 percent drop in the cases where force is used of the police. Scott points to the death of South Carolinian Walter Scott, who was shot in the back while running from a white police officer, and Eric Garner, whose famous last words, “I can’t breathe,” became the basis for a civil rights chant.


“Without the video evidence, there is no debate… videos are, frankly, perhaps the most powerful tool” to bring injustice to light, Scott told a small group of reporters Tuesday. “What we’re seeing today is not a new situation. It’s that technology has brought the situation to light.”

Since unrest erupted in Ferguson over the shooting of Michael Brown in August 2014, Congress has been objectively ineffectual. No laws have been passed to reform the law which allows local law enforcement to purchase military equipment, despite some initial hope. In fact, no laws targeting the cold relationship between minorities and law enforcement have been passed at all.

For Scott, the problems of racial tension are “not a red-blue issue.” It’s not President Obama’s fault. It’s a failure to lead nationally, he says, in tackling the root causes of poverty.


“These young kids today face the most exciting future… I don’t think they know it exists,” Scott said. “Too many of them at 20 have thrown away hope. I think that’s a leadership problem—not in Baltimore, but nationally. We have to do a better job of presenting and selling the journey of the American dream.”

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BellaFenice
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posted May 02, 2015 07:06 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for BellaFenice     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Sorry, had to add this too. I've heard these comments unfortunately too much this week. Definitely heard them during Ferguson as well.

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Ami Anne
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posted May 02, 2015 10:09 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Ami Anne     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
FOX NEWS BOMBSHELL! Freddie Gray tested positive for HEROIN and POT, cops saw him DEALING DRUGS!

Read more: http://therightscoop.com/fox-news-bombshell-freddie-gray-tested-positive-for-heroin-and-pot-cops-saw-him-dealing-drugs/#ixzz3YzSHSkTE

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Randall
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posted May 02, 2015 10:25 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Randall     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I think you are missing the point entirely. Stealing Pringles isn't a protest. It's a thief and an opportunist. That person doesn't care about any issues involved.

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Randall
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posted May 02, 2015 10:39 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Randall     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
And you should stop referring to Ferguson. You speak of wanting evidence. The evidence in Ferguson showed that he lunged at the officer. Still, the "protesters" used it as an excuse to steal TVs.

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Randall
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posted May 02, 2015 10:44 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Randall     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
The police need military equipment to restore peace and order when mobs turn violent. Without it, these small towns would be picked clean by these thieves. They even ransack their own neighborhood small businesses that the society depends upon, including African-American owned. Protesters? Really?

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Randall
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posted May 02, 2015 10:50 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Randall     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
You comparing a soldier defending this country to a looter is disgusting. Yes, they are terrorists. Destruction of property is the definition for terrorism. And criminals will always be able to buy guns. Does anyone have trouble buying illegal drugs? Your stupid gun legislation will only make it difficult for lawful citizens to own guns.

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Randall
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posted May 02, 2015 10:52 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Randall     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Moving to GU, since it appears to be a legislation thread.

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aquaguy91
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posted May 02, 2015 11:12 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for aquaguy91     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Randall and Ami,
It's important to keep in mind that cops are always going to say they are justified in their actions and the government is usually going to back them up.

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Catalina
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posted May 02, 2015 11:28 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Catalina     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Now here is some Big Picture reporting. At last. An anonymous faceless person who says he is a cop says Gray MAY have been dealing drugs and "tested positive "for two drugs known to sedate people as evidence its all a set up by Them.

http://m.therightscoop.com/fox-news-bombshell-freddie-gray-tested-positive-for-heroin-and-pot-cops-saw-him-dealing-drugs/#ixzz3YzSHSkTE

Thank god a lone sane voice in the crowd of Sheeple.

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Randall
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posted May 02, 2015 11:58 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Randall     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
If cops break the law, they should be punished, but keep in mind that most police officers are good people who joined to protect and serve and who put their lives on the line every time they do a routine traffic stop.

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Randall
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posted May 02, 2015 12:01 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Randall     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I also find your comments about poverty being a "Black" problem to be an uneducated viewpoint, Bella. There are more Whites on food stamps and other forms of government assistance than are African-Americans.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/28/food-stamp-demographics_n_6771938.html

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Randall
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posted May 02, 2015 12:15 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Randall     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
When I was growing up, we were dirt poor. We only went to school, because we could eat there. We didn't know where our next meal would come from on the weekends. My mom had to walk miles to coin laundries with an unraveled wire coat hanger to sweep under the washing machines for dropped change, just so her three young boys could have bread. Bella, have you ever cried in your room (that you shared with two other siblings) from your belly aching from starving? Or felt the shame from having to call a random church from a payphone to beg for canned foods? Poverty is not a race problem. Still, none of us ever threw a brick into a window or shoplifted or hit someone on the head or robbed anyone. We never sold drugs or used them. My mom told us that we could be anything we wanted to when we grew up, and we believed her...despite all evidence to the contrary. And you, Bella, with your life of privilege, dare to come in here and proclaim poverty to be a "Black" problem. I doubt you have ever gone hungry a day in your life. Furthermore, you dared to come here a few months past and to mock me for being accepted into a tier-3 law school. Is that what those on the left who proclaim big hearts are supposed to do? I can tell your first-hand about poverty. I can tell you with aching detail about having no food, about being homeless, and about living in a car. And it has nothing to do with the color of one's skin. But I can also tell you about hope. Dreams. Opportunity. About living in a country where anyone can go to college and work hard and become anything they desire to be.

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juniperb
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posted May 02, 2015 02:16 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for juniperb     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
We praise those who go to Iraq, but we condemn looters? Some citizens complain we need to exercise our rights for guns that have led to so many unnecessary murders are the same upset over bricks being thrown?
Another question, when predominantly white populations vandalize after sporting events, is that terrorism as well?

We need to be a little careful of using the definition of terrorism, because technically we could say the same thing for the thousands of innocent blacks killed by the police each year. That is a far better fit of terrorism than pringles getting stolen out of CVS.



quote:
We praise those who go to Iraq, but we condemn looters?

Apples and oranges. The military is a job . Looting is not . Looting is intentional theft and property distruction.
We can add our own ethics but willful destruction and doing a job for the military are not the same to me.

quote:
Another question, when predominantly white populations vandalize after sporting events, is that terrorism as well?

Asolutely. One and the same .
Willful destruction.

quote:
We need to be a little careful of using the definition of terrorism, because technically we could say the same thing for the thousands of innocent blacks killed by the police each year. That is a far better fit of terrorism than pringles getting stolen out of CVS.

My concern on this isn`t the can of pringles. It was the drugs stolen. Oxycodone and that addictive family of drugs.
I would like to believe the looters gave out the drugs to cancer victims or other patients in pain. But want to bet they sold them on the streets and helped perpetuate crime by distributing their stolen loot??

I don`t care what "color" the cvs looter was. I care about the children getting those drugs and adding to the addiction and crime problem.

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Randall
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posted May 02, 2015 02:30 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Randall     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Good points, Juni.

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Randall
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posted May 02, 2015 02:43 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Randall     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I can also tell you from personal experience about police profiling (though maybe not to the extent that African-Americans can). Having long hair has me profiled occasionally. Like the time myself, my brother, and my nephew went to Podunk USA for a wrestling show, only to be pulled over and literally swarmed by police cars. You would have thought we just robbed a bank. One cop asked my brother, "When was the last time you smoked crack?" He said, "Never have, never will." The cop then said: "Wrong answer. Step out of the vehicle." We were illegally searched (officers can only pat you down to determine if you have a weapon), and the car was rummaged through and searched illegally. They just KNEW these long-haired guys had drugs! Of course, they found nothing. My nephew wanted to be a police officer, and he was even holding a police car we had just bought him minutes before from Walmart! Needless to say, seeing the cops treat his dad and uncle like criminals has changed his mind about his future vocation. But I can also tell you several personal accounts of the kindness of police officers. The ones that come to mind to me right now are when a cop stopped to help me change my tire in the rain...and helped me push my car out of the mud when I illegally tried to cross over the median and got stuck...or when I found myself lost in a small town in Alabama and was going down the wrong way on a one-way street, and he ended up giving me a police escort to my destination. Don't condemn an entire group for the actions of a few bigots or power-hungry a@@holes.

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