Comments

1
If there were real alternatives to car travel this might be considered more plausible than simple trolling.
2
There was one year here in Washington where I was pulled over or ticketed 6 separate times in WA. I'm not black. But I don't "look like you" (typical WA guy). I tried growing a beard (recently). But it's just not me.

I was given a ticket once for "rolling through a stop sign". This was on an uphill and I was driving a shift car. Since I didn't want to roll back, I pulled up to the empty, 3-way stop on a near deserted area on Kent East Hill and bingo, motorcycle cop nailed me.

His words stick in my mind. "Well, you drove up to the sign, and *almost* came to a stop, but then you rolled through it by a foot." Golly gee whiz, Wally. Can't a regular guy catch a break, even if he is a squirt (by big Washington standards).

3
Charles, you were doing so well! You had a string of awesome columns with insightful economic and cultural analysis. And now you are back to borderline trolling with by saying African Americans should use public transit to avoid getting pulled over. Even if that were not as absurd as "All people have to do to avoid dying of hunger is to eat something," it would mean accepting second class status in society, that discrimination against African Americans would have won.

Come back with a proposal for how we, the non-African American readers, could help reduce the incidence of being pulled over for "driving while black."
4
@2 And the Narcissist of the Day award goes to...

The guy who takes a discussion on America's deep racism and tries to turn it into a bitch-party because he doesn't "look like a typical NW guy" (whatever the fuck that means.)
5
Charles, what a copout! That's like saying if you want to avoid e-coli, one should starve.

FWIW, when working in the suburbs for a few years, I would simply drive 60-65 in the right hand lane. Driving a used economy car with no tinted windows.

Other than that, such strategy, if utilized, would only work in NYC, or London where you have a good 24/7 public transportation system, not a mediocre one that many people are hard pressed to use for long distances or night time weekend service.
6
I think the problem is that the people who will be affected by a boycott (car manufacturers, repairmen, gas stations, etc.) are not the people whose behavior you seek to change through the boycott (police officers/law enforcement generally). Additionally, the Montgomery Bus Boycott had a very specific target (the Montgomery bus system) and an easily measurable aim (ending racial segregation on the bus system). How would you know when the car boycott had been successful (it's not like every highway patrol officer in the country is going to simultaneously agree to stop racial profiling), and how would you monitor compliance with any terms of capitulation?
7
No. The only problem with this proposal is that it doesn't go far enough. African Americans need to boycott Capitalism. Period (and, also, I'm dead serious). Buy food, buy clothing, buy shelter, maybe buy art, but Stop Buying Their Shit. Stop buying Their cars, Their electronics, Their plastics, Their packaging, Their services. Stop buying them. Stop Buying Their Shit. Do that, and the world will change in a godawful hurry.
8
#4

Thanks for the tip.

Instead of using social media to relate issues to personal experience, I'll spout words like an Orca sprays water out its blowhole. Yammering about things I no know nothing about, with no resource to facts, observed or gathered.

Then I too can play the part of the Grandstand Foolosopher.

9
Charles essentially hates:
- cars
- rural America
- capitalism

What else?
10
@9, dogs and handle-less paper grocery bags.
11
In Russia they also have a problem with assaults and brutality in general while driving. Maybe they are on to something there by not retracting from society in feeble self-sacrificing protest by arming themselves with recording devices.

Why not encourage everybody to just have their own dash cams? Nothing to lose, and only piece of mind to gain. Plus the footage that comes out of Russia due to the the number of cameras always recording is always excellent.

http://jalopnik.com/why-russians-are-obs…
12
I took this piece from Charles as a Swiftian "modest proposal" because of absurdity of advocating going carless as a solution for a class of people. It is almost like saying women shouldn't go to bars to avoid getting assaulted.
13
#7. Real talk.
14
Wouldn't make any difference anyway; they'll just pull you over for Walking While Black, Talking While Black, Breathing While Black - all of which, IIRC have examples that played out pretty much the same way.
15
DWB and all the other xWB offenses are real, but motorists on the road are like a salmon-gorged stream is to a hungry bear, in the sight of law enforcement orificers. It's a political phenomenon, and like all politics, it's local. In Bellevue on a fine summer day, you won't find blacks driving on 108th Ave SE, but you sure as hell will find a speed trap snaring pretty white and Asian maidens in expensive German cars. In some counties in Jeebus-Land, there are notorious stretches of road where the cops will rob you, legally, and with no regard to your race. An out-of-state plate is enough for these Opies. Life in FreedomLand®.
16
Also, the dash-cam video showed Sandra Bland did a "California stop" on her "free right" from a stop sign. She didn't come to a complete stop as she rolled across a bike lane. She didn't deserve death or even being locked up, but the officer had cause to pull her over before she was changing lanes.
17
@15: And how many of those end with pretty white and Asian maidens in expensive German cars being told they're about to be "lit up", yanked out of their cars, their heads slammed into the concrete and then taken to jail for days on end?
18
Other things you can't do WB:
- standing on a sidewalk with a golf club
- play loud music at gas station
-get your driver license from your pant pocket as requested by police officer
- walking while deaf
- have skittles (hear that 12ers)
- pick up a toy gun at Walmart
-visit friends in upscale neighborhoods with private patrol
-carry a cellphone
-go to Yale, teach at Harvard, and try to get in your own house late at night
-ask for help after an accident
-ride a train and carry your life savings in cash
-ride your bike as a kid or an adult (especially in Fla.)
-be President of the USA without being called a monkey or the First Lady, a gorilla face, by a Mayor in our enlightened state....
19
I can't wait to see how Mudede will twist future tragedies toward his other pet crusades. Maybe a lethal home invasion to justify directing everyone to move to micro-housing?

@8: "I'll spout words like an Orca sprays water out its blowhole. Yammering about things I no know nothing about, with no resource to facts, observed or gathered."

How is this different than what you do here every day? Why do you think JBITDMFOTP" is repeated so often here? Or did you really not know that's referring to you?
20
@14 is correct.

Sadly.
21
Charles, your plan is interesting, but only works for those who live in urban and suburban centers that have well funded public transit. But even places like Detroit don't have a decently funded transit system as we learned when that one man was having to walk and bus all over the Detroit area to get to work.
22
To avoid being arrested for DWB, black people should stop driving?
That's like how collectivism_sucks (who professes to be a gay black man) once told me that to prevent racial discrimination in hiring, we should get rid of the minimum wage so that racial minorities can work for a lower starting wage.

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