I’ve been pulled over before in North Miami with my autistic brother in the car.
My family grew up in North Miami.
I now live only about five minutes from North Miami.
But North Miami is not the place I thought it was.
North Miami is a dangerous place for black people and a dangerous place for people with disabilities.
Some will say that the shooting of Charles Kinsey was an isolated incident.
I think it is all we need to know.
The story, which is now an international news item goes like this.
Police are called by someone claiming that a man is carrying a gun, threatening to kill himself. The man is walking in the middle of a street in North Miami. The man is autistic and it is clear to see on the videotape.
A man named Charles Kinsey comes over to help the autistic man. Kinsey quickly realizes that the autistic man is just holding a toy truck- not a gun.
He is no threat to anybody and just needs to get back to his group home from which he has escaped from.
The rest of the details are still a bit fuzzy.
Police show up, pull out high-powered rifles and order the two men to lie down.
Kinsey complies, lies on his back and puts his hands high up in the sky.
The autistic man sits down next to Kinsey.
The rest of the story is well-known by now.
“All he has is a toy truck, a toy truck,” Kinsey is heard yelling at police in cellphone video. “I am a behavior therapist at a group home.”
The police then proceed to shoot Kinsey three times in the leg as he is lying down mere feet from the autistic man.
I became enraged when I first heard the news of the incident last night.
Then I became scared.
Terrified.
This could happen to my brother.
While I’ve always supported the Black Lives Matters movement, today is the first day that I really understand the totality of its importance.
Our police are the only people in the world that have the power to kill an American citizen if force is justified. They have the legal writ to use violence. And we need them to have that right. But it also means that we need to hold them to an incredibly high standard.
We have to pay them better, we have to recruit better people into the force and we have to train the great people already in the force on how to identity people with developmental disabilities.
It is never ok to shoot an unarmed man who poises no direct threat to an officer, himself or another person.
And it is never ok to shoot an unarmed man who is mere feet away from a person with autism.
North Miami is not the place I thought it was and I’m scared to death for my brother, for my family, for potential aides that my brother may have and for myself.
This makes it plain as day that some officers in the North Miami Police Department do not have the training or the empathy needed to do their jobs.
But North Miami is also not unique.
Ethan Saylor was a 26-year-old man from Maryland. He also had down syndrome. And he was white.
Ethan was choked to death by off duty police officers after he refused to leave a movie theatre. He wasn’t violent. Have you ever met someone with down syndrome? He wasn’t a threat.
Saylor was described by people who knew him as a sweet, loving man with an innocent spirit.
He also loved the police more than just about anything.
He was so fascinated by cop shows and the idea of helping people that he once called 911 innocently just to ask them about their work.
Ethan Saylor believed that police officers were good people who had devoted his life to protect people like him.
And they killed him on the ground in a dirty movie theatre like an animal.
He cried out for his mother as his life was ripped from him.
“Ouch Mom, that hurts, don’t touch me, get off!” he said.
Then he died of asphyxiation. The cartilage in his throat was fractured, and he had bruises and abrasions all over his face and body. The cause of death was homicide.
I’ve always said I supported Black Lives Matter because of my “empathy.”
But fuck empathy.
This is about survival.
If we can’t protect black lives, then we sure as hell won’t be able to protect autistic ones.
America has a problem folks. And its worse than we thought.
Do you have a news tip about excessive police force involving people with disabilities? Send us a news tip to [email protected].
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in public affairs. You can write for us.
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Sick Of Donald Trump? This Silly Website Is For You Then
The presidential campaign has been a long, ugly slog in the eyes of many Americans.
And for many of those same Americans who are upset with the state of the race, Donald Trump is the poster child for what is wrong with politics today.
Luckily for you, there is a new website that will make it all better.
Just trust us on this one:
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Fuck You Gawker. Hillary’s Plan For Start Up Founder Debt Forgiveness Is A Good One
Gawker. Ugh.
I am a defender of you and your trashy ways most of the time. But sometimes you folks just suck.
This is one of those sucky times.
Enter this snarky headline: Hillary Clinton Offers Student Debt Deferral to Those Who Need it Most: Startup-Launching Americans
Gawker seems to find fault in a new policy proposal rolled out by Hillary Clinton to give start-up founders and entrepreneurs a leg up by offering them three years of student debt deferral while they work to build their businesses.
Their article offers little in the way of substance other than just hating on start up culture and making fun of failed companies.
The plan by the Democratic frontrunner also calls for the same deferrals to apply to the first 10 to 20 employees at a start-up company.
As the Clinton campaign notes, many young people want to be entrepreneurs: “more than half of America’s millennials say they want to start a business—but barriers like student debt and a lack of access to credit are holding young people back.”
The government should do everything it can to encourage small business development and to help young people get the space to build great things. The economy is rapidly shifting and the jobs of tomorrow will be created by the young minds of today.
Gone are the days of straight line career paths and ladders that go only up.
Clinton’s plan is a good one for a number of reasons.
First, it recognizes that the economy is changing faster than we can even imagine and creates a real solution to a problem facing many young entrepreneurs.
Secondly, it seeks to level the playing field for the heavily white, male dominated start up culture (that is largely centered around one geographic location in California).
From the Clinton plan: “Additionally, for young innovators who decide to launch either new businesses that operate in distressed communities, or social enterprises that provide measurable social impact and benefit, she will offer forgiveness of up to $17,500 of their student loans after five years.”
As a young start up founder with a whole bunch of student loans, I totally understand why this is important.
Would it really do the economy a long term benefit for all young people with an entrepreneurial sense to be forced to work for companies that may not exist in five years just because of the burden of their student loans? How does that really do anything to help?
The reality is that many young people out of college are basically free of most costs.
They can afford to live very cheaply, typically have few real responsibilities (like children or a mortgage, for example) and are therefore perfectly positioned to take risks.
Those risks can help diversity the economy and move the country forward.
I’m not a defender of traditional start up culture but Clinton’s plan will actually help diversity what that culture is like in America by allowing more people to participate in it.
It will act as both an economic and social policy.
Of course, the way Gawker looks at things, you would think Clinton is trying to put a foosball table in every home.
From Gawker: “Student debt forgiveness is an essential piece of the puzzle for getting Americans who dropped out after watching The Social Network sophomore year back on their feet, and Clinton should be applauded for embracing it.”
Frankly it is much less risky starting your own business than drawing a paycheck from such a risky endeavor such as Gawker.
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in public affairs. You can write for us.
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How Donald Trump Is An IRL Internet Troll
The following is an opinion piece that does not necessarily reflect the views of Rise News. It was originally published in Rise Miami News.
By Fred Russell
In watching the almost continuous news coverage of Donald Trump’s recent gaffs, I started to notice a pattern developing. There was a word for how this man was acting.
I had my suspicions about what he may have been doing, but I couldn’t be sure. It all started when he made openly bigoted statements about Mexican immigrants, suggesting they were “rapists” and “criminals”.
Then, at the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa, he disrespected Senator John McCain by suggesting that he was not in fact a war hero, because he had been captured. At this point it was starting to become clear that Mr. Trump was saying these things purely to gain attention from anyone who would look in his direction.
This type of behavior is known among some internet users as “trolling”. At least that’s what it seemed like to me. Urban Dictionary defines the word “Internet Troll” as: “Someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion.”
I woke up a few days later, flipped the television on to watch the news with some coffee. My suspicions were confirmed in such spectacular fashion, I did a spit-take and sprayed Mr. Trump directly in the face with my morning cup of joe. Donald Trump had publicly listed the cell phone number of a U.S. Senator, and encouraged millions of viewers on live television to give him a call. A video surfaced the next day on the internet of Senator Lindsey Graham destroying his cell phone by throwing it at a wall.
So there it was. Doxing. Wikipedia defines doxing as: ”Doxing (from dox, abbreviation of documents), or doxxing, is the Internet-based practice of researching and broadcasting personally identifiable information about an individual.”
They go on to explain: “Doxing may be carried out for various reasons, including to aid law enforcement, business analysis, extortion, coercion, harassment, public shaming and vigilante justice.”
In this case, I would say that Donald Trump had doxxed his fellow Republican presidential candidate for the purpose of harassment. In true troll form, he had inconvenienced someone simply because it garnered attention for him.
I am sure some will suggest that if I know he just wants attention, I should probably refrain from writing about him and stop giving him what he wants. However, anyone familiar with the garden-variety internet troll knows that in any argument, there will be one person who points out the troll and makes a great suggestion. I am that guy.
Most internet message boards and social networks come with a special option, which allows users to break contact with anyone who bothers them. Hit the block button. Ignore him, America. Put this bigoted, antagonistic ass behind you. That is where asses belong.
Cover Photo Credit: Sarah Russell
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