Residents, elected officials and family members gathered at the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in Fort Greene this week to remember Shem Walker’s life – an innocent Clinton Hill resident fatally shot by an undercover police officer – and discuss the implications, policy and the prevention of tragedies like this one.
Tag: Race
Last Wednesday, on the evening of the final presidential debate of this cycle, held at Hofstra University, Senator John McCain alleged in the most cautious terms he could muster, that ACORN “is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.”
Nearby, in the Uniondale section of Hempstead Iona Emsley cringed. For the last 19 years, Ms. Emsley has worked with various chapters of ACORN—in Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island—to fight for social, housing and immigrant rights.
On a recent chilly night, I was bundled up and on my way to Boerum Hill to have dinner at a friend’s apartment. As I walked down Washington Avenue the B45 bus pulled up next to me, and I hesitated. “Which would be faster, the train or the bus?” I thought. Before I could make a decision, the bus doors had shuttered. Luckily, the light at Atlantic and Washington was still red and I approached the bus and knocked on the door. The driver, a middle-aged African-American man, refused to open the door, gesturing to the next stop, three street crossings away, even though his bus was still idling perfectly in front of a designated stop. It was 15 degrees outside and I’ll admit it, I felt like the driver was sticking it to me for being white.