Interesting week.

Asa Coon went on a rampage at a Cleveland School revealing that blacks are still viewed as expendable in the psyches of the insane. And also revealing, vis a vis television interviews of the survivors, the public education system is failing many urban black youth. And their parents seem either aloof or blind to the horror.

On the west coast. A good good friend was pulled over by the Los Angeles police department. He was driving within the speed limit, taking a friend home, driving a sports car. And black. The police pulled him over. Asked where he was going. Where he was coming from. Wouldn't tell him the reason they stopped him. And after my friend insisted they were simply stopping him because he was black and then refused to answer any of their questions, they got nasty. After my friend finally relinquished his license, the cops left and came back and told him it was illegal for him to drive with an exhaust that was not manufactured with the car. My friend, who knows many things, ignored the insidiousness of the officer's excuse, retrieved the license, gave them a last piece of radical mind and moved on.

Part two. My friend called the police headquarters and filed a police profiling complaint. They took his name, number and address. A few days later he was busy hosting relatives from out of town and honoring Ramandan [although secular, he was raised in the Nation of Islam and Ramadan is the one thing he holds close to his heart]. Well, one night after 9pm his phone was ringing off the hook. He wasn't answering. At midnite, a call came in from the front security desk of his building. He and his guests were sleep. At 12:30am heavy knocking at his front door interrupted his sleep. Heavy pounding actually. His family became nervous. The pounding finally stopped. My friend thought it was some random ex who was acting out. Well, the next day, he checked his voicemail and it was the police. Checking up on the profiling complaint.

My friend immediately called the headquaters and complained. One, about the inappropriateness of the time of the calls and the uninvited visit to his apartment after midnite without announcing who they were. The headquarters told him, Yeh, we can get a bit ruthless when it comes to profiling complaints. We take them very seriously. [They're exact words.] Feeling a bit harrassed, my friend told headquarters that he wanted to drop the complaint and didn't want to have anything else to do with them again. The headquarters told him he COULDN'T drop the complaint. That he HAD to come down to headquarters and go through a 30 minute interview. And that was that.

Needless to say, my friend is a bit concerned [and so are his family and friends]... he has sought legal counsel.

Last but not least, I've surrendered to the unrelenting gray hairs in my goatee.

Until next time,

Keith