Gawker
Yesterday the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a federal suit alleging police racially profiled Leonardo Blair, a black New York Post reporter who said he was arrested and harassed for simply walking down the street with his fiancée. The same day, his bosses at the Post ran an editorial saying there was too much fuss made over racial profiling:
Anti-cop radicals [like] the New York Civil Liberties Union... won't be happy 'till every last cop is off the streets (and maybe behind bars)... If cops stand down, as critics demand, it'll be welcome back crime and chaos.
Blair wrote an account of his police incident for the Post in December.
After he was stopped and angrily asked if he spoke English, and after he threw back "No, no hablo ingles" and the officer briefly took him seriously, Blair was handcuffed and taken to a precinct house. There, he announced his affiliation with the Post, he said in a statement given to Editor & Publisher:
The only reason why I declared to these officers that I was a reporter for the New York Post, that I was a graduate of Columbia University, is because I wanted it to end. I should not have to pull on cards to be respected as an individual.
Saying he was with the Post proved to be sort of get-out-of-jail free card, he hinted in his writeup in the Post:
I unloaded: "I have a master's degree from Columbia University. I am a reporter for the New York Post. What do you mean this is not incarceration?"
The air froze. Officer Castillo kept writing, but I watched his face go flush.
"Now I understand what black people mean in this country when they talk about things like this," I said to Officer Reynolds.
"What do you mean? I am black, too," he said.
"That's what makes it so shameful," I said. "You stood there and watched him cuff me for no reason and you said nothing." He walked away.
At 9:04 p.m., 10 minutes after I was put in the cell, Officer Castillo let me out.
"Mr. Blair," he said. "You are free to go."
(Side note: Sheila, you totally should have tried this!)
The only charges brought against Blair by the police, making unreasonable noise and disobeying a lawful order, were dismissed by a judge.
The Post wears its pro-police bias as a badge of honor, and Blair's suit was, perhaps, an embarrassment. It's easy to imagine its editorial yesterday as something other than an accident, a way to cement the paper's relationship with the NYPD and rebuke its off-the-reservation reporter without breaking any labor laws.
Or it could just be another pro-police Post editorial. Not sure it even really matters.
[E&P, Post editorial, Post story]
(Photo by New York Post)
Comments
Murdoch has a black reporter on staff? Isn't that a headline in itself?
"Of course, no one should be surprised by the allegations of racism - or even wacky suggestions for police, in essence, to disband as a result of the Bell verdict."
Are there people other than me making those suggestions? Sweet!
Da-yammn: He looks angry! See: here is the problem of Rupe owning so much media and why everyone needs to rise up: The edit page lies and says one thing and there own staff proves them wrong. But back to Mr. Blair: Da-yamn.
that's "their" own staff .. not there.
He got respect when he told them he was a Post reporter? I would have left him locked in there for bad use of hyperbolic puns in a lede.
The Daily News is going to go out and get themselves a black reporter surnamed Blair today, just to keep up with its peers.
SHEILA
Officer, I am a graduate of (mumbles).
OFFICER (smacking on gum that's two days old.)
Yeah. So?
SHEILA (to self.)
Oh shit.
(Thinking.)
SHEILA
Um, I'm a woman, dammit!
OFFICER
I ask you again. You hear me askin' ya? So?
SHEILA (grasping)
I tried selling lemonade once, from a stand on my front lawn. I painted a sign, constructed the damn thing out of lumber left over from my neighbor's deck project, and he even lent me the nails, the hammer, the concrete for the footings, the everything. And like a good DIY'er, I wore the goggles, you know the safety goggles? And I even put a bandanna around my head, it was red, people thought I was a Blood! And then, I went to Lowe's or Ace, I don't remember, and bought myself a pair of those work gloves, you know, the ones made out of leather, so that I wouldn't callous up my delicate hands, the same hands that once held a reproduction of the Magna Carta - long story. The parchment crumbled, right there in my hands! Anyway, I also had a tool belt, because who wants to see my ass crack when I stoop to pick up the hammer? It's inevitable, I tell ya, it's inevitable, the worksite ass crack. Sometimes, admittedly, ass crack is wonderful, but not on a job site. For reals! Construction managers write that shit into the union contract: No worksite ass crack. I think they got Jimmy Hoffa to agree to that language, so it's pretty ironclad. Is this a union shop? Anyway, yeah, I built that lemonade stand, varnished it up all nice, like those cherry wood cabinets you see on Home Improvement, no not the one with Tim Allen, you know what show I'm talkin' about? And I put my sign up, as previously discussed, and NO ONE CAME. People drove by, walked by with their fucking kids, and not one of them could spend a fucking QUARTER for some lemony refreshment? IT'S ONLY 95 DEGREES OUT HERE, PEOPLE! I was heard to exclaim, by my mother, who told me to "Keep it down, Sheel-Sheel, you already scare the neighbors!" And I was like, hey, maybe THAT's why these sons of bitches aren't buying my fucking lemonade!
OFFICER
You had me at "ass crack."
SHEILA (interrupted; befuddled.)
What?
OFFICER
Name, last name, first name, social.
SHEILA
But -
OFFICER
I'll need your address too please.
SHEILA (The straws? She grasps at them.)
Um, officer?
OFFICER
Ass crack?
SHEILA
I write for Gawker.
OFFICER
Gawker.
SHEILA
Yeah.
OFFICER
Gawker. You know -
(SHEILA gulps.)
OFFICER
You tell that prick Richard, (whispers) I let you out of here on account that I win the next Open Caption, you understand me?
SHEILA
Open Caption? Laaaaaaaaame.
OFFICER
Officer Snidely!
(SNIDELY sidles up. He is beefy.)
SNIDELY
Yeah?
OFFICER
Lock her up.
SHEILA (snarling, but resigned.)
Fucking Richard.
@In Other News...:
hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
**(standing ovation)**
@fileunder: Maybe Jason is available?
I haven't ever gotten good results from cops when I've gotten smart with them. Not ever. This is something they should teach at Columbia.
Sounds like the Post threw Leonardo Blair under the bus - and then, after the bus ran him over, told him to get up, brush himself off, climb on board the bus and sit in the back of it.
@youreabigjessie: "I'd like an 'H' wash."
@In Other News...: Did you check with Angie?
Oh, come on. You have loyalty to one's employee's on one hand and fidelity to The Order of Things on the other. It's a fucking Republican paper; in what way is the Post's choice in any way surprising?
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