So they are burning and looting in Baltimore tonight

Hmm, and just where did you get the notion some of the officers were charged with illegal search and seizure? The prosecutor had charged some of the officers with an illegal arrest, and that charge has been dropped and for good reason. The prosecutor falsely or erroneously charged the officers with that offense. The charge was more a reflection of the prosecutor's unfamiliarity with the applicable law. The weapon (i.e. knife) was illegal therefore the assault and false imprisonment charges were dropped for the arresting officers and replaced with reckless endangerment.

 

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Wow. Completely spla, or what are you doing?

That has not been determined. The law is not clear in that matter. Also, the knife was not visible - so the legality of the search does not depend on the legality of the knife, therefore the legality of the arrest does not either.

That depends on what they do, when, why, and to whom. As a pattern, over time.

No, it's not at all difficult to "construe" racism when black suspects and criminals are treated differently from white suspects and criminals by the police.

Speak for yourself. I was discussing the thread topic, using the common fact of premature gun pointing (with Wilson's apparent behavior, the experiences of every single black man I've worked with in the past ten years or more, and so forth, merely contributing support) and other aspects of oppressive police behavior

to remind you, and whoever else has their head where yours is, that police oppression of black communities is the presumption, the rule not the exception, in the US.

That is the context of the Baltimore riots

 

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That would be me. It's spitballed, from an acquaintanceship with the murder stats in the US (black men murdered almost all the black men not lynched) and the stats on lynchings (the KKK did only some of the lynching, and a good fraction of their victims were white, female, children, etc).

If you want to argue it, probably your best chance would be 1892, the peak lynching year. I might actually be wrong, that year - more than 200 black men lynched, probably, and fewer than 1500 murdered, probably, so the question would be the percentage of lynchings of black men that were KKK actions. (The contemporary stats I can recall off hand show about 160 lynchings of black people total including women and children, around 7000 murders in a country 12% black with a prison population about 30% black. All those numbers are low, but finding the best modern comparison stats is a royal pain).

The point is that one cannot measure oppression by comparing kill stats. A killing by the police is far more significant than other killings, just as a lynching is far more significant than a gang fight death.

 

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The bottom line here is you don't have any evidence to support your assertion.

 

I'll bite: 1) what's my assertion, according to you,

and 2) why isn't a fair comparison of the relevant stats from the cherrypicked year of greatest risk "evidence"?

You don't have to supply any relevance of your commentary to the thread discussion, or deal with the actual point I was making - I'm not going to ask for water from a stone, here.

 

What...you don't know what you have written? Where is your source? You make some very sweeping statements with little evidence and reason to back any of it up. Blacks populations, like white populations, have become more urban and less rural over time. There were 3 periods of Klan activity. And domestic violence rates, drug and alcohol use, and black on black crime rates have changed over time. Society has changed over the course of that last 150+ years. You cannot reasonably apply todays domestic violence patterns to those which existed more than a 100 years ago. Record keeping 100 years back were not what they are today. I doubt the information you need to support your assertion even exists. Did you not write, "The point is that one cannot measure oppression by comparing kill stats". Yes you can measure oppression with statistics, but that isn't what you were asked to do. You were asked for some data which supports your assertion. You don't like statics because the numbers, along with many other things, are just not consistent with your beliefs.

Let me make is simple for you. You need a timeframe. You need to know the total number of blacks who were lynched by the KKK over that timeframe and you need to know how many blacks were killed by other blacks over the same time period. You have been asked for your source, and you have yet to provide that source.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization

I suspect black on black violence was far less frequent 150 years ago than it is today, because the black population back then was far more rural than it is today. I think you are applying the same black on black violence rates we see today on the rural black populations which existed after the Civil War. That's like comparing apples to oranges. It wasn't until 1915, when blacks began migrating to Northern cities to work in factories, that the black population became less rural and more urban. So where is your source?

http://www.blackpast.org/aah/great-migration-1915-1960

 

LOL, what is the matter Ice? J

Except it is very clear, that is why those charges have been dropped.

Actually, it isn’t. Contrary to your beliefs, defending one’s self isn’t racism. Everyone, including police officers, have the right to defend themselves. All that is needed is for the act to be a reasonable use of force as it was in the Brown shooting (i.e. Ferguson).

And do you have evidence black suspects are treated differently from whites? NO, you don’t. In this thread a member wrote he was subject to untoward police violence and mistreatment in Baltimore and he isn’t black. He is white. In the Gray case, the officers accused of his murder are black.

You are contradicting yourself again and trying to change the subject. Why am I not surprised? You raised the Baltimore and Zimmerman cases to support your belief that Officer Wilson pulled his gun in order to accost a young black teenager who was merely jaywalking. And as I have repeatedly proven that is sheer fiction. Additionally, I have repeatedly pointed out to you, the Zimmerman and Baltimore cases are unrelated cases and certainly not relevant to your belief Officer Wilson drew his gun in order to accost a young black man. There was no gun involvement in the Baltimore case and the police weren’t involved in shooting Martin (i.e. the Zimmerman incident).in shooting Martin (i.e. the Zimmerman incident). The bottom line here is your belief the police are always wrong trumps fact and reason in your mind.

That is the context of the Baltimore riots[/QUOTE]

 

You can't read well, I see. I said in post 261, I was "disturbed that there is no charge for illegal search and seizure. - The police had no "probable cause" except "racial profiling" which is also illegal."

Freedom from unreasonable search and seizure is a constitutional right (but in practice only if you are not black).

 

Hmm, and you have evidence of racial profiling in this case? Do you have proof Mr Gray was unreasonably searched and seized? Where is your evidence BillyT? You don't have any. You are just mindlessly following a herd.

So you are "disturbed" the police were not charged for crimes they didn't commit?

 

I have no doubt the vast majority of Baltimore residents are black. According to the last census, about 32% of Baltimore residents are white, 5% are Hispanic and 63% are black. http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/24/24510.html

BillyT has accused the Baltimore Police of racial profiling, and there is no evidence of such. Baltimore demographics don’t prove the Baltimore Police Department has engaged in racial profiling. In fact it works against the accusation. Since the majority of Baltimore residents are black, it shouldn’t be surprising that more blacks are arrested in Baltimore or have more encounters with the Baltimore Police Department. As previously mentioned, we have a white Sciforums member here who has reported being physically abused by the Baltimore Police Department. Was he racially profiled for being white?

As I said before the evidence suggests the problems in Baltimore are more attributable to social class than race. Race is still a problem for the US. But I just don’t see it here. A few years ago when I employed people to care for my aunt, one of the young women I employed to care for her asked if it would be ok for her husband to come to my home to pick her up because her husband was black and she was white. I was struck by her question and at the same time saddened, because this woman thought it was important and that she had to ask. So obviously racism is still alive and it will likely be with us for a very long time. But that doesn’t mean the Baltimore Police are a bunch of racists or have engaged in racial profiling.

I’d say, based on my experiences working in the inner city as an EMT, it’s more likely a case of social class profiling, if anything, and job related stress. I think it is very obvious the Baltimore Police Department has some very glaring cultural issues. Mr. Gray’s encounter with the Baltimore Police Department should not have been fatal. And the circumstances which led to his death need to be addressed so no one else shares Mr. Gray’s fate. But to do that, we need to put on our big boy pants, and identify and fix the real issues a foot here. And race is an easy distraction. At some point, evidence and reason need to matter.

Sure, demagoguery, yelling and screaming racially charged chants, looting and burning down a few buildings will make some people feel better. But it will not solve the problems residents of Baltimore and other big cities around the country face. It will just make them worse.

If they have made that clear as you assert, then why have they, and in particular the state’s attorney who repeated the “no justice, no peace” chant from her podium, not charged any Baltimore Police officer for unlawful search and seizure? Why did the state’s prosecutor drop the assault and illegal arrest charges against the arresting police officers? Because if the illegal search and seizure charge had merit, it would also mean Mr. Gray was illegally arrested and assaulted as the state’s prosecutor had originally alleged. Additionally, it would mean Mr. Gray’s knife was illegally stolen. Instead, the state’s prosecutor has dropped those charges and replaced them with the charge of reckless endangerment.

And if the charge of racial profiling is not necessary, then why did BillyT make it? The fact is the racial profiling charge doesn’t make sense. As you pointed out black is the majority population in Baltimore. Almost 2/3’s of Baltimore’s population is black.

Yes American police have the right to stop and question anyone in a public space. But they also have the power to detain anyone indefinitely. Normally detention is only long enough to complete an investigation (e.g. a traffic stop). However, detention can be for an indefinite period of time (e.g. prisoners held in Guantanamo).

https://www.aclu.org/news/president-obama-signs-indefinite-detention-bill-law?redirect=national-security/president-obama-signs-indefinite-detention-bill-law

http://criminal.findlaw.com/crimina...tely-search-my-vehicle-without-a-warrant.html

 

I quoted the relevant statute to you, in full. You can see for yourself that it is not clear, and if you are unable to discern that by reading the text for yourself I and others here haver helpfully pointed out the specific areas of potential differences in interpretation.

You can also see that the knife Gray was carrying was almost certainly legal under that law - that would be the obvious interpretation, by anyone familiar with the English language and the ordinary jackknife.

Your presumption of the motives behind the prosecutor dropping those charges are without such evidence or any reasoning, and are not necessary here. You don't have to attempt to read the mind of the prosecutor, or try to figure out why they dropped this or that charge - you can read the law for yourself.

Likewise with this:

That would violate habeus corpus, also the 7th, 8th, and 10th amendments to the Constitution, and require a Supreme Court ruling at the very least - probably a Constitutional amendment.

If they defend themselves differently against black people than they do against white people, that would be evidence of racism.

Your argument and evidence for that assertion do not make sense. You seem to think that if entire neighborhoods are abused, lower class whites along with all blacks in them, that the police are not racially profiling - even if all the neighborhoods targeted in this way are predominantly black, even if the middle and upper class black people are treated like lower class whites, and so forth. So the most obvious and flagrant and customary institutionalizations of racial profiling and racial oppression, where everyone except wealthy white people in entire neighborhoods is routinely abused because black people live in them, would be somehow not racist?

You also seem to think that social class bigotries and racial bigotries are mutually exclusive. What the evidence indicates is that the Baltimore police make their social classifications based partly - maybe even predominantly - on race, including the dominant race of the neighborhood. There may be other explanations for this evidence, but that's the most obvious possibility.

 

LOL…what statues? We were discussing the DOJ report and as previously demonstrated, you have only quoted 2 sentences from an 86 page document and you have misconstrued those 2 sentences. You have been repeatedly challenged to provide evidence to support your assertions and you have repeatedly failed to do so. And who are these “others” exactly? What you have done and continue to do Ice is lie.

Then why were the false imprisonment charges dropped? And where your proof is the knife in question was “almost certainly legal”? And how is something “almost” legal exactly? It’s either legal or it isn’t. It really is that simple. There is no "almost".

Hmm and where exactly did I presume the motives behind the prosecutor? Where exactly did I attempt to read the prosecutor’s mind? What I did was ask a question. I asked this question, “Why did the state’s prosecutor drop the assault and illegal arrest charges against the arresting police officers?” You are making stuff up yet again Ice.

Except it doesn’t per the previously referenced material, you know you are really good at making shit up Ice, too bad you are not very good at doing your homework.
“In Terry v. Ohio, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a person can be stopped and briefly detained by a police officer based on a reasonable suspicion of involvement in a punishable crime. If the officer has reasonable suspicion, the officer may perform a search of the person's outer garments for weapons. Such a detention does not violate the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizure, though it must be brief. Reasonable suspicion does not provide grounds for arrest; however, an arrest can be made if facts discovered during the detention provide probable cause that the suspect has committed a crime.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_suspicion
I suggest you go back and read my previous post. Pay close attention to the ACLU reference.

How can there be racial profiling if both races are treated in the same manner? How is it racism, if both races are treated the same? As you have been repeatedly reminded, the police officer accused with murdering and abusing a young black man here is black. And you think that doesn’t make sense…seriously?
And as for entire neighborhoods, you just went off into the deep end again.

Ugh, and you think that makes sense?

Oh, and what would lead you to that conclusion exactly? Getting back to my last post, did I not say racism still exists and did I not give an example of such? But just because racism exists, it doesn’t mean everything bad is due to racism. This is where fact and reason come into play. There is no evidence racism played a role in Mr. Gray’s demise at the hand of police. There is however, ample evidence to suggest Mr. Gray was abused because of his social status or lack thereof. As we have seen in this thread, blacks aren’t the only victims of Baltimore Police misbehavior. So while it is easy to scream racism, yell, loot, burn and otherwise vandalize the community, it is much more difficult to look at and address the real issues in our inner cities, the lack of jobs, the lack of educational opportunities, poor infrastructure, the lack of role models, dysfunctional families, abject poverty, and overworked social agencies (e.g. police departments). The problems of our inner cities run deep and they are many. By scapegoating everything with racism, we overlook our very real problems which continue to vex our inner cities and that is indeed tragic. We perpetuate the tragedy and nothing changes. Our inner city problems go way beyond racism. And you seem incapable or just unwilling to understand that very simple fact.

 

No, we were discussing the matter of the legality of Freddie Gray's knife. Having failed to read my quotation of the relevant law or the description of the knife, you were once again demanding support for an assertion whose support you had not bothered to read in the first place. So I politely referred you to it. I suggest you read it.

I don't know.

When you claimed to know why certain charges were dropped.

I quoted the law, and compared its description with the that of the knife found and the jackknife in my own pocket, which is sold in the hardware departments of Baltimore stores.

You have a serious reading comprehension problem. You had just quoted my post, for chrissake.

I suggest you reread what you were trying to claim: that police can detain American citizens indefinitely, and search them without reasonable cause for suspicion. Compare your posting with your links. "Indefinite" detention and "brief" detention are not the same thing, btw.

They aren't being treated the same - that's the problem here. It's causing hard feelings, even riots.

So?

Really. So you are unaware of the fact that police in the US often enforce the law differently in different neighborhoods?

Yes, there is. Quite a bit, ranging from Gray's history of lead poisoning to the manner in which the police handled his detainment.

This kind of garbage is uncommon in white neighborhoods, and very rarely happens to white people in any neighborhood.

Social status in the US varies by race.

Racism past and present is a significant factor in every single one of those - often the major factor, as in Baltimore.

 

LOL, so I guess you are going to forget the last two and a half weeks of discussion, you know the whole part about where you asserted policemen prematurely drawdown on blacks and cited Officer Wilson as an example? The knife discussion occurred 2 and a half weeks ago. On May 7, you quoted the Baltimore knife law and you referenced the incorrect article. Below is the correct citation. http://www.sciforums.com/threads/so...baltimore-tonight.145828/page-10#post-3296110
§ 59-22. Switch-blade knives.
(a) Possession or sale, etc., prohibited.
It shall be unlawful for any person to sell, carry, or possess any knife with an automatic spring or
other device for opening and/or closing the blade, commonly known as a switch-blade knife.
(b) Penalties.
Any person violating the provisions of this section, shall, upon conviction thereof, be fined not
more than $500 or be imprisoned for not more than 1 year, or both, in the discretion of the court. – Baltimore City Code.
And then you went on to equate switch blades with knives carried by tradesmen in their tool belts. I have never known a tradesman to carry a switchblade.

For the umpteenth time, when did I claim I knew why certain charges were dropped? Please provide the text in which I claimed to know why certain charges were dropped. You have been repeatedly asked to prove your assertion that I claimed to know why the charges of false imprisonment were dropped. You cannot, because it doesn’t exist. So you just repeat your lie. You have been caught in yet another lie Ice. I merely asked a question, one of the many questions you have yet to answer, probably because you cannot answer them without admitting to the untruthfulness of your assertions.

So craftsmen carry around “switchblades” do they? The Baltimore statue clearly and unequivocally identifies and forbids switchblades. It doesn’t make knives carried by tradesmen illegal. You are being more than a little disingenuous again.
Do you have any evidence to support your claim Baltimore department stores are selling switchblades? Of course you don’t, because they aren’t. Unfortunately for you Ice, fact and reason do matter.

LOL, yeah I did quote you and I’ll do it again for your edification, “You can also see that the knife Gray was carrying was almost certainly legal under that law”. Why did you preface your statement with the word “almost”. Unfortunately for you Ice words do have meanings. I suggest you look up the meaning of the word “almost”. As I said before, switchblades are either legal or they are not, and the Baltimore City Code clearly and explicitly and contrary to your assertions makes switchblades illegal.

Below is the Webster's definition of the word "almost" for your edification.

“very nearly but not exactly or entirely” <we're almost there> http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/almost

I suggest you try being honest. The issue here was the right of police to detain and search people. And as I previously wrote and provided references, police can detain people based on reasonable suspicion and I referenced a Wiki article on the issue of reasonable suspicion. I also referenced articles on detention. Contrary to your assertion, police in this country do have the right to detain people long enough to complete their investigation and I have examples. In most jurisdictions, people can be detained for a period of 72 hours (Saturday, Sunday and Holidays excluded) without charges being filed. I also cited an article published by the American Civil Liberties Union which voices its objection to the indefinite detention provisions contained within the National Defense Authorization Act.

The unpleasant fact for you Ice, is you are clearly wrong yet again. And why you think brief (whatever brief is) and indefinite are relevant here is baffling. Because, the length of detention isn’t relevant in the Gray case, in the Gray case the issue is whither police had the right to detain Mr. Gray, and clearly per the previously referenced materials, they did.

Oh, and where is your evidence blacks are not being treated the same? That is the problem here; you have no evidence to back up your beliefs. Yes, police may enforce laws differently from jurisdiction in the US, because unlike other countries we have a fragmented system of laws and law enforcement. Each state, county, and municipality makes their own laws and each has a law enforcement entity to enforce their laws. Marijuana laws are not enforced by state and municipal governments in Colorado, but in surrounding states marijuana laws are rigorously enforced. But that doesn’t in any way imply the racism.

Hmm, so lead poisoning is racist? And how do you know Mr. Gray suffered from lead poisoning? I grew up in an era in which lead was ubiquitous. It was in the pipe, in the paint, and in our gasoline. I remember as a child playing with paint chips and smelling the gasoline all of which contained lead and I’m white, so am I a victim of white racism? Two, how do you know Mr. Gray suffered from lead poisoning?

As I previously wrote, there is evidence police have physically abused whites just as they abused blacks. So where is your evidence blacks are treated differently than whites or other races by the Baltimore Police Department.

Then it should be easy to provide some evidence to back up your beliefs. Yet you have none.

And what does that mean exactly and how is that relevant? I really don’t think that matters much to the victim of unwarranted police violence or neglect. The unpleasant fact for you is the problems demonstrated by the Gray incident in Baltimore are much deeper than just race.

Except you have no evidence to support that belief. Half of the police officers involved in the Baltimore case were black, and the officer charged with the murder of Mr. Gray is black. So that kind of works against your belief in racism as a causal factor in Mr. Gray's untimely demise.

 

Switch blade knives (automatically opening knife, when the lock mechanism is released. I.e. the blade always under force trying to open it.) are all forbidden to be sold by US government, except to certain qualified buyers.

Your text quoted above is irrelevant as Freddy's knife was NOT switch blade knife. In closed position the blade is without ANY force acting on it trying to open it. There is not only no locking mechanism, but no need for one. When closed the blade is "stress free." There is spring that only exerts a force on the blade AFTER, the human has partially opened knife. Hence these knives are legal thru out the US, except in few counties where ALL pocket knives with blade greater blade length greater then the county's law specifies are illegal. These legal knives are called "spring assisted" knives. Again they are NOT illegal switch blade knives.

You have been told all this before, more than once in this thread; thus you are just being dishonest, not ignorant, with the above quoted text.

Invention of "facts" & Dishonesty & Putting word in others mouth, & Deliberate lying are all common tricks you use in your posts. All worse than just ignorance.

 

Except, as previously discussed at length, that isn't true. The US government (i.e. federal government) doesn't forbid the sale of switchblade knives. If I had a mind to, I could walk out the door right now and buy a switchblade knife at a local store. Search Amazon.com for switchblade and see how many knives are displayed. Each state and many municipalities have their own rules regarding knives. Federal law limits interstate commerce with respect to switchblades and it prohibits switchblades on federally owned lands. But it doesn't prohibit individual ownership, possession, the manufacturing or sale within individual states.

http://www.kctv5.com/story/22972575...witchblades-daggers-and-other-types-of-knives

The Switchblade Knife Act, (Pub.L. 85–623, 72 Stat. 562, enacted on August 12, 1958, and codified in 15 U.S.C. §§ 1241–1245), prohibits the manufacture, importation, distribution, transportation, and sale of switchblade knives in commercial transactions substantially affecting interstate commerce[67] between any state, territory, possession of the United States, or the District of Columbia, and any place outside that state, territory, U.S. possession, or the District of Columbia. The Act also prohibits possession of such knives on federal or Indian lands or on lands subject to federal jurisdiction. It does not prohibit the ownership or carrying of automatic knives or switchblades inside a state while not on federal property, nor does it prohibit the acquisition or disposition of such knives in an intrastate transaction or an interstate transaction that is noncommercial and/or does not substantially affect interstate commerce (as defined by recent decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switchblade#Federal_law

And if that is so, then you should be able to offer some proof to support that assertion. But for weeks now and after numerous requests, neither you nor Ice have been able to offer a single shred of evidence to support your assertion Mr. Gray's knife is legal. I have repeatedly asked you and Ice, why were the illegal arrest charges dropped if the Mr. Gray's knife was legal as you have asserted. If Mr. Gray's knife were a legal knife, then the illegal arrest charge would be slam dunk. Because Mr. Gray's knife was the basis for his arrest.

Yeah, I have heard your arguments before and I have repeatedly debunked each of them, just as I did in this post with respect to your assertion as to the legality of switchblade knives. That wasn't the first time you made that same fallacious assertion, nor do I expect it will be the last. And that wasn't the first time I have called you on your many errors of fact and I doubt it will be the last. If I were ignorant, you should be able to, you know, offer some factually correct material on occasion.

You have been dishonest BillyT, but I am thinking your cognitive impairments (e.g. biases) and your cognitive dissonances are more to blame than your dishonesty.

And what facts have I invented exactly? Yeah, according to you other people are always putting words in your mouth BillyT, that's how you rationalize your nonsensical and factually incorrect posts. That is just an excuse.

 

Not lunch counters, but restaurants. I LEAD the effort, after leaders using "moral arguments" had failed in the two prior summers.
For some details see:
http://www.sciforums.com/threads/indianas-freedom-to-discriminate-law.145520/#post-3288365
Or:
http://www.sciforums.com/threads/charlie-hebdo-attack-paris-fr.143863/page-4#post-3263298
Or these paragraphs from: http://www.sciforums.com/threads/zionist-piracy.102034/page-72#post-2563457:

"I was much more than just a picket line worker. I was effectively the tactical commander of 200 to 300 people. My official title was "transportation coordinator" but I told everyone which car to get in at the assemble point and where to go, and what time to the minute it was to be parked a block away from its target restaurant. - We had to hit them all within a few minutes of my schedule as the Restaurant Association, RA, had developed a counter measure telephone alert system that would get the doors of others not yet hit locked. One or two WBs (white bodies) would go in and order food a few minutes before T=0 when two or three BBs would rapidly enter and sit down with them. By T = 2, the door would be locked and the picket line would be starting to set up. The car would go back to the assembly area and load up some more BBs for the picket line at least once, usually twice. It was summer and they had nothing else to do so we always had more high school BBs than we could fire at the restaurants. I put the best dressed ones in the first car loads."

"... we had 2 cases in the courts already and could not afford legal reps for more so always left when told by the police to do so, and walked in the picket line for more than an hour - until the Sunday dinner hour was over. I got to know and respect one intelligent BB quite well on the picket lines. I complained to him that it was hypocritical for me not to be on the all black executive committee, deciding which restaurants to hit, etc. considering how much effort I was doing. He responded with the most painful reply (because it was so true, so unjust) I have ever heard:

He stuck out his arm and asked: " What color is my skin?" - "Black" I replied. Then he said: "Someday, you will walk away from all this, I can't." It still hurts / bring tears / just to type this - I knew at the time it was true. In part for him, I will not shut up about the Bedouins who can not even speak for themselves from their three concentration camp cities. As usual, Israel controls the flow of adverse information when it can. "

And this from end of that link:
"PS:
One of the proudest days in my life happen by chance: I was ~30 years later in a nice Baltimore restaurant and there was a large and somewhat noisy (lots of laughing) all black family group celebrating something - about 5 tables pushed together in the center of the restaurant. Most of the tables along the walls were occupied by white people and none were even paying much attention or looking at the celebrating blacks. Certainly no one was complaining about them. - I thought to myself: I made that happen / possible. It felt very good – better than when JHU’s dean handed me my Ph. D.

PS 2
My motivation was not all civic.

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(We were called the "Civic Interest Group"). At least half of the cars came with rich girls from Goucher College*** just north of Baltimore. My some strange coincidences, I was almost always in the car of one of the prettiest.

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(I was not an "old man" back then.)

*** Co-ed now, but girls only back then and very well thought of. Father of one of the girls I dated a few times, owned entirely a small Hawian Island.

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Thanks for sharing that- and for giving a damn. You did make a difference and "passing the torch" makes a difference too. I hope you'll keep on passing it for a long time. - hypewaders, Jul 10, 2009