I have been hit between the eyes with an eighth-grade math insight on how unbearably Bloomberg's stop-and-frisk intrudes into the free lives of Black and Hispanic males: 700,000 stops per year equal 7,000,000 over 10 years. Blacks and Hispanics make up 4 of 8 million city residents -- 2 million of whom are male -- about .5 million are of the 14-35 likely police stop age -- which averages out to 14 stops (and 7 frisks) over 10 years for every minority male if all stops were of Blacks and Hispanics -- let's drop that to 12 stops (and 6 frisks) every 10 years!
Everything in the Bill of Rights -- the first ten amendments to the Constitution -- is in our DNA. Basic human need creates our Fourth Amendment rights -- not the other way around. Depriving people of their Fourth Amendment rights is truly ruining their lives -- their enjoyment of moving around the world like it belonged to them (don't we all want to feel that?).
You can be racist (verb) without being a racist (noun). Up until a couple of years ago, whenever I (frequently) saw young minority males pulled out of their autos here in Chicago with the usual deal, I figured: well, they are tough young boys (because they are young boys) and if minorities get the treatment a little more often (more like exclusively) they can handle a extra bit of rough stuff.
But, after looking at the constitutionally impossible to justify New York numbers: 4X less crime followed by 7 times as many stops = 28 times as many stops per reported crime -- and -- just now realizing the massive numerical intrusion upon what should be the equally free American lives of minority males (even upon the youngest high school boys!) I realize that I was totally in the wrong.
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