Seemingly contradictory calls to lock up and to save Black people dueled in legislatures around the country but also in the minds of Americans. Black leaders joined with Republicans from Nixon to Reagan, and with Democrats from Johnson to Bill Clinton, in calling for and largely receiving more police officers, tougher and mandatory sentencing, and

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From this point of view, Rodney King’s protective reflexes, the disorderly movements by which he struggled to stay alive (he flaps his arms, staggers, tries to get up, stands on his knees) were described as being under his “total control” and as evidence of “dangerous intent,” as if violence were the sole voluntary action possible for a Black body,

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So when their chosen heroes — the freedom fighters in whom they invested so much moral cachet — showed up at a concert and started beheading raver kids and Asian workers and abducting grandmas and God knows what else, what were Western leftists supposed to do? In situations like that there are really only two things you can do, without switching yo... See more