NYT columnist 'fumes' over alleged racial profiling of his son
Maybe it's just heartburn.
New York Times columnist Charles Blow is “fuming.” In a series of Twitter messages, Blow claims that his son, a third-year student at Yale University, was stopped by campus police because he fit the description of a burglary suspect. Blow included the hashtags #ICantBreathe, #RacialBattleFatigue, and #BlackLivesMatter.
In the Saturday night tweets, Blow said police “accosted” his son “at gunpoint” when he was leaving the library but that he was let go when “they realized he was a college student, not a criminal.” In one tweet, Blow rushed to judgment, writing that he has “no patience for ppl trying to convince me that the fear these young blk men feel isn’t real.”
The alleged encounter came after police responded to emergency calls from undergraduate students reporting that an intruder had gained access to their rooms on the pretense of looking for someone. They described the suspect as “a tall, African-American, college-age student wearing a black jacket and a red and white hat.”
In an e-mail, a Yale spokesperson mentioned that a person matching the description had been detained “briefly” and released. The e-mail did not name the columnist’s son, Tahj Blow, as the person detained at the library, nor whether police held him at gunpoint. A suspect was later arrested at an adjacent college residence hall, according to the New Haven Register, and will be charged with felony burglaries.
What is supposed to happen in this circumstance? How are the police going to apprehend the criminal if the description involves a black man? Are they supposed to ignore the call?
Incidentally, white college students get stopped and questioned, too. When my son attended the local university, he and two of his friends drove to a concert in Northern Virginia. When a young woman attending the show reported that a white guy had stolen her purse and the description matched one of my son’s friends, all three were stopped and questioned. They were respectful, cooperative, polite, and soon let go.
But Blow can’t help playing the race card. Without having any facts, he accuses Yale police of targeting his son. Blow’s “fuming” naturally means he will write his umpteenth column about racist cops who profile black males. ...
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