well, those of us who are white, over 30, or female, don't really have to worry. our chances of being randomly stopped and publicly patted down are very low.
but if you are dark skinned, male and in your teens or 20s this will happen to you in new york. it happens to the guys on my street, it's happened to college kids going to columbia and cuny, and it would happen to barak obama if he was back in his twenties living in manhattan. 600,000 stops last year. 90% of those searched are innocent pedestrians but their human and constitutional rights are routinely flagrantly violated on the reasoning that if you search 10 young black men, one will be carrying a weapon or drugs.
it's more like things that happened to german jews in the 1930s than something that's actually occurring today in the land of the free.
i strongly suspect that if they searched 10 stock brokers, more than one would have drugs (i mean, i've known some stock brokers,) and quite possibly something that qualifies as a weapon as well.
empor-mayor bloomberg promotes this policy and says polling shows most new yorkers support it. that's shocking and disgusting.
i guess people condone such authoritarian abuses because it's never happened to them. this year, let the police run their hands over the bodies of, and through the pockets and purses of, 600,000 truly random new yorkers while others watch, and we'll see how much support it gets.
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