The Exception to Exceptionalism: Why marginalized communities feel a collective guilt in America

When the federal building in Oklahoma City was bombed in 1995, the authorities and all media outlets immediately blamed it on “Islamic terrorists.” Members of the Muslim community around the country were attacked, verbally and physically. When Black people protest and one sets a building on fire, all Black people are blamed collectively.For White people the rules are generally the opposite.

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Special News Series: Rising Up For Justice! – Lafayette Square: iconic for Trump presidency

With his triumphal stride through the square to historical St. John’s Episcopal Church, Trump had hoped to appear strong and dominant, and to dispel the narrative of him hiding in the secured White House bunker during evening protests outside. Demanding a show of force, he sought to make the nation’s capital a shining example of how to control the streets amid racial unrest.

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California Lawmakers Pass Bill Aimed At Curbing Deadly Police Shooting

The California State Senate passed a bill to raise the standard for law enforcement’s use of deadly force, with the goal of reducing fatal police shootings. It replaces the “current vague standard” that officers can use deadly force “whenever reasonable” with a stricter standard allowing for deadly force “only when necessary.”

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This police robot could make traffic stops safer

A California man has built a robot that he hopes will take some of the danger out of traffic stops — those anxiety-provoking and potentially deadly encounters between police officers and motorists that play out on American roads more than 50,000 times a day. Such encounters lead to many injuries and deaths each year — particularly among black motorists, who are more likely than their white counterparts to experience violence from police.

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A Black Officer, a White Woman, a Rare Murder Conviction.

In this week’s edition of Race/Related from the New York Times, journalist John Eligon brings us the news out of Minneapolis, where police officer Mohamed Noor has been found guilty by a racially diverse jury for the shooting and killing of Justine Ruszczyk. Despite the relief that the justice system can actually hold its law enforcement officers accountable, some have found the circumstances of the verdict a bit ironic: the officer convicted is a black, Somali, Muslim man, and his victim was a white woman. With the tables of race turned in this case from the usual story (white cop shoots, kills black man), there are those who question whether the guilty verdict in this case can be chalked up to justice or hypocrisy. At the end of the day, all we can do is let the facts of the case speak for themselves – regardless of whose skin is what color – and let justice be served to all under the law, even those whose duty it is to enforce it.

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Study Finds Racial Bias In Police Traffic Stops And Searches

Black drivers were about 20 percent more likely than whites to be pulled over, according to an analysis of nearly 100 million cases. By Sarah Ruiz-Grossman, Huffington Postpolice A large-scale study of traffic stops across the U.S. found significant black-versus-white disparities in how often drivers were stopped and searched by police, as well as evidence of…

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