[Cyber Liberty]

Sounds to me like you have about as much of the story as Jesse Jackson usually has when he goes off half-cocked.

[Bikers4Bush]

No, not ever.

[katnip]

Hey, if people in Chicago are comfortable knowing illiterate, underqualified people are running around with guns and authority simply because they have more melanin, more power to them!


It's in the new Constitution!

[laweeks]

"ould race-based affirmative action sometimes be ok?"

NO, a thousand times NO. No such thing as "Affirmative Action." It's just like "Safe Abortion." Someone gets hurt. Both are done deliberately, with impunity, and with premeditation. Both terms are oxymorons.

[clamper1797]

NO

[gitmo]

the cops said they had to let passers-by take their photograph.

Chicago has a law requiring bands to let passers-by take their pictures? This doesn't sound right.

[Sam Cree]

Theoretically, benevolent totalitarianism would be the best of all worlds. However, no sane person except those who thind they would be the power wielders wants to take a chance on such a thing.

Individual freedom is based entirely on equality before the law.

[rogerthedodger]

Funny, I've seen big white and black policemen do the same thing to my skinny white friends, sometimes for not reacting to a command in time, sometimes for apparently no reason, and on multiple occasions.

Could it be that the problem does not stem from race, but from other problems, such as, perhaps the kind of people we hire as police, crowd control practices, etc.?

[MACVSOG68]

How many ways can you spell NO!

How do you explain to the white candidate that he was not selected simply because he was white? Equal Opportunity does not mean Equal Results! Or should we require significantly more white males in the NBA?

[my4kidsdad]

Something about the story doesn't sound right - not sure if you have/know all the facts. Although the Chicago Police can SOMETIMES be a little brutal, they wouldn't go off on a band (which band?) for not letting their picture be taken. Was this band a street band or playing on-stage?
As "rogerthedodger" stated, the police get upset if you do not QUICKLY follow their commands.

[TheMole]

I wasn't there and you haven't given us much information, but one reason the band members might not want to have their pictures taken could be because there are warrants out for their arrest. As to "affirmative action", better known as racial hiring quotas, one of its most fully documented effects is the overall lowering of standards. IOW, if you allow the hiring of unqualified "minority" employees, soon you'll likely be hiring unqualifed white men who wouldn't have met the previous standards. You wind up with no enforeable standards and a workforce who have been hired for various spurious reasons.

[Dr. Frank fan]

There must have been 20 cops, and only one of them was black. This kind of racial difference between the sides could have sparked a riot.

Why is that? Are you saying that many people in the audience would have been violently angry merely because the percentage of dark-skinned people among the cops was lower than the percentage of dark-skinned people among the band? And, so angry that they would have been willing to start a riot over this skin-color-difference??

That's just insane! If what you're saying is true, we're talking full-on raving insanity here.

Sounds like the real question here is: Why were the people in that audience such frickin' insane racists?

[The Real Eddie01]

No.

It's not race. It is crime. There is not a misperception but a reality.

I live in Detroit. As a white male, a blue eyed devil, I am guaranteed death if I walk the Detroit city streets at night (not Greek Town). I WILL BE killed for being white.

You go on with life believing there is not a seething hatred from inner city blacks boiling just benath the surface. I feel it. I feel the hate. I live with the hate.

If I didn't have a family I would have someone videotape me moving through Detroit City at night just so you could watch them approach and kill me. Maybe a shot from behind to the back of my head, maybe a knife in my chest, maybe even a porcelean lamp busting my skull.

Eddie01 "Dear moderator, I realize this post is provacative but it is not racist. It is not a blanket indictment of an entire race, it is a sad fact of my life."

[BraveMan]

Forget Taste of Chicago. Drive on up for Summerfest. Have a Bratwurst. Laugh at the Cheeseheads . . .