Tag: police officer
The Angst Behind China’s ‘Lying Flat’ Youth
On Halloween in 2022, outside a party the police had just disbanded in Beijing’s warehouse district, I saw a 20-something woman in a sparkly spandex suit and bunny ears run into the road. “Freedom, not testing!” she shouted. “Reform, not revolution! Votes, not dictators! Citizens, not slaves!”
Those were familiar words at Tsinghua University, where I was studying for a master’s degree. From a bridge near campus, someone had hung a banner emblazoned with the slogans. The banner’s
The Gaps Between Media and Reality
Readers share examples of media portrayals that are at odds with their own life experiences.
Welcome to Up for Debate. Each week, Conor Friedersdorf rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.
Last week I asked readers what they experience or observe personally that is most at odds with
How the Supreme Court Protects Police Officers
On the afternoon of February 8, 2018, more than two dozen law-enforcement officers crowded into a conference room in the Henry County Sheriff’s Office, on the outskirts of Atlanta. They were preparing to execute a no-knock warrant at 305 English Road, the home of a suspected drug dealer who had been under investigation for almost two years. The special agent leading the briefing told the team that 305 English Road was a small house with off-white siding and several
Democrats’ Long Goodbye to the Working Class
As we move into the endgame of the 2022 election, the Democrats face a familiar problem. America’s historical party of the working class keeps losing working-class support. And not just among white voters. Not only has the emerging Democratic majority I once predicted failed to materialize, but many of the nonwhite voters who were supposed to deliver it are instead voting for Republicans.
This year, Democrats have chosen to run a campaign focused on three things: abortion rights, gun control,
‘Queen Sugar’ Is the Most Luxurious Show on Television
In the Season 2 opener of the OWN drama Queen Sugar, a teenaged Micah West (played by Nicholas Ashe) is pulled over in his luxury sports car for what appears to be an instance of driving while Black. After he’s released into the custody of his parents, the estranged couple argues in the parking lot. Meanwhile, when Micah’s Aunt Nova (Rutina Wesley) comes to comfort him, she notices that the boy has urinated on himself. “Ain’t nothin’ to be
Chesa Boudin Recall: How San Francisco Became a Failed City
San Francisco was conquered by the United States in 1846, and two years later, the Americans discovered gold. That’s about when my ancestors came—my German great-great-great-grandfather worked at a butcher shop on Jackson Street. The gold dried up but too many young men with outlandish dreams remained. The little city, prone to earthquakes and fires, kept growing. The Beats came, then the hippies; the moxie and hubris of the place remained.
My grandmother’s favorite insult was to call someone
Mass Shootings, Young Men, and What Can Be Done
This is an edition of Up for Debate, a newsletter by Conor Friedersdorf. On Wednesdays, he rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Every Monday, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.
Question of the Week
What do you think about guns, the right to bear arms, gun deaths, and gun policy?
Conversations of Note
Yesterday an 18-year-old gunman killed at least 19 elementary-school children and two adults in Uvalde, Texas,
Among the Refugees in Warsaw
On February 24, within hours of the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Karolina Lewestam and her husband, Jakub Fast, saw on social media that Ukrainians were arriving at bus and train stations in Warsaw with no idea where they would sleep.
Without even pausing to discuss it, the couple—a writer and a banker—jumped into group chats with
Most of Hollywood’s Writers’ Rooms Look Nothing Like America
I. “You Can Hear a Pin Drop”
Carl Winslow, the protagonist of the ’90s sitcom Family Matters, wore his badge with honor. On the show, about a middle-class Black household in Chicago, Winslow (played by Reginald VelJohnson) loved being a police officer almost as much as he hated seeing the family’s pesky neighbor, Steve Urkel (Jaleel White), popping up in his home. Carl was a quintessential TV-sitcom cop, doughnut clichés and all. In one scene, he announces that he’s