In his "one-on-one stidown" last night with NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, The Nightly Show's Larry Wilmore asked about the mayor's relations with police, and they had -- wonder of wonders! -- a genuinely sensible conversation about race.by KenFor his first Nightly Show "one-on-one," Larry Wilmore sat down last night with NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio. (The mayor is becoming something of a TV "presence." As the NYT's Michael M. Grynabum notes, "In Fact and Fiction, Mayor de Blasio Becomes a TV Fixture.") Naturally, though, the part I heard about on the radio this morning was where Mayor Bill commented on the recent outburst of hysteria over his observation, which in fact dates back to the election campaign (as you can hear him point out in the clip), that he has had the talk with his son Dante, who is of mixed race, by which I mean the talk about how to deal with police.Larry is one interviewer who doesn't need to have this explained. It's still hard to believe, though, that there are any Americans who need to have it explained. This is all the more regrettable when you're reminded that when you do try to explain why persons of color in this country need to be actively aware of the racial attitudes likely to be ingrained in any cops they encounter, there's that now-permanent chorus of screeching ignoramuses and liars lying in wait to screech, "Anti-police! Anti-police!" And unfortunately, the cops themselves remain all but universally silent, apparently not grasping how terrible this makes them look. It puts them in an indefensible mode of "that's our story and we're sticking to it" stonewalling as reality catches up with them. (As with, for example, the pending DoJ report that inspired the NYT headline "Justice Department to Fault Ferguson Police, Seeing Racial Bias in Traffic Stops.") In the clip we hear Mayor de Blasio talking about some highly sensible steps he's encouraging in police training to try to rechannel the initial impulses to violence. It's hard to understand how what he's saying could even be controversial let alone a rallying cry for the right-wing thugs who aren't interested in good, effective policing but only in authoritarian control.Of course, what can we expect from people who tell us with every appeal to racial bigotry and violent repression how much they don't love America?#
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