<html><head></head><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:garamond, new york, times, serif;font-size:16px"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2340" lang="EN" style='color: rgb(51, 51, 51); mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-ansi-language: EN;'><font id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2341" face="Calibri">The Nov. 29 News-Gazette editorial titled "Chicago shooting looks
indefensible" concluded as follows: "At its root, however, is an
unfortunate self-destructive kid who was shot and killed when he should have
been neutralized and helped."</font></span><font id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2342" face="Times New Roman">
</font><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2343" style="margin: 6pt 0in; line-height: 18pt;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2344" lang="EN" style='color: rgb(51, 51, 51); mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-ansi-language: EN;'><font id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2345" face="Calibri">I would replace this with: At its root, however, is the cold-blooded,
execution-style murder of a black child by a white police officer, while other
officers watched.</font></span></div><font id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2346" face="Times New Roman">
</font><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2347" style="margin: 6pt 0in; line-height: 18pt;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2348" lang="EN" style='color: rgb(51, 51, 51); mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-ansi-language: EN;'><font id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2349" face="Calibri">It's difficult in our society to even imagine a situation in which the
races are reversed; we should ask why.</font></span></div><font id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2350" face="Times New Roman">
</font><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2351" style="margin: 6pt 0in; line-height: 18pt;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2352" lang="EN" style='color: rgb(51, 51, 51); mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-ansi-language: EN;'><font id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2353" face="Calibri">The editors exclude history and sociology from the discussion.</font></span></div><font id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2354" face="Times New Roman">
</font><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2355" style="margin: 6pt 0in; line-height: 18pt;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2356" lang="EN" style='color: rgb(51, 51, 51); mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-ansi-language: EN;'><font id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2357" face="Calibri">However, for 400 years, blackness has been identified with criminality. The
notion of policing has been inseparable from the control of blacks, of the
wealth produced by black labor (male and female), of black bodies (male and
female), and of segregated black spaces.</font></span></div><font id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2358" face="Times New Roman">
</font><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2359" style="margin: 6pt 0in; line-height: 18pt;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2360" lang="EN" style='color: rgb(51, 51, 51); mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-ansi-language: EN;'><font id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2361" face="Calibri">This history proceeds through slavery, post-Civil War convict labor
("slavery by another name"), Jim Crow and northern "de
facto" segregation, and mass incarceration (the "new Jim Crow").</font></span></div><font id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2362" face="Times New Roman">
</font><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2363" style="margin: 6pt 0in; line-height: 18pt;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2364" lang="EN" style='color: rgb(51, 51, 51); mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-ansi-language: EN;'><font id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2365" face="Calibri">While blackness has been defined in the dominant culture in terms of
potential for criminality, whiteness has been defined in terms of assumed
innocence. Immigrant white ethnics aspired to this status and by 1945 largely
achieved it.</font></span></div><font id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2366" face="Times New Roman">
</font><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2367" style="margin: 6pt 0in; line-height: 18pt;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2368" lang="EN" style='color: rgb(51, 51, 51); mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-ansi-language: EN;'><font id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2369" face="Calibri">Since then, urban and suburban racial narratives and working-class
consciousness have evolved on that basis.</font></span></div><font id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2370" face="Times New Roman">
</font><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2371" style="margin: 6pt 0in; line-height: 18pt;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2372" lang="EN" style='color: rgb(51, 51, 51); mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-ansi-language: EN;'><font id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2373" face="Calibri">The violent realities of poverty are used by whites to justify police
victimization of blacks.</font></span></div><font id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2374" face="Times New Roman">
</font><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2375" style="margin: 6pt 0in; line-height: normal;" dir="ltr"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2376" lang="EN" style='color: rgb(51, 51, 51); mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-ansi-language: EN;'><font id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2377" face="Calibri">But as whites become increasingly dispossessed, stereotypical resentments
may increasingly give way to informed, compassionate analysis; and to
constructive, multi-racial political movements.</font></span></div><font id="yui_3_16_0_1_1449504816319_2378" face="Times New Roman">
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