Not to get into a lengthy debate, but if you look through the comments on this article, a fair number of people seem open to the idea that it might have been suicide. The real conversation seems to be centering on the idea that the police had a responsibility to “protect and serve” Sandra Bland even and especially…

You need to develop excellent secondary selection qualifications. Memorize the recipe for Cinnabons or steal a copy of the unpublished 7th book of A Song of Ice and Fire and threaten that if you die, those secrets will be lost forever.

Fingerprints = unique marks = your embryo is a special baby snowflake?

Exactly. You can see him corroborating his version of events with the female officer, getting his story straight. He very clearly didn’t expect Bland’s protests to get far enough for anyone to see the dashcam video; makes sense that the entire department, top to bottom, genuinely did not expect to be given any…

Holy shit, you’re right. That white car drives up, disappears in the middle of the road, then reappears; then the same car makes a left turn three times in a row.

I appreciate all of these; great fights I wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.

I thought you might be, but I wasn’t 100% sure and apparently I was in an Explaining Things mood. Sorry for the long response you didn’t really need. Thank you for taking it in stride. :)

Let’s talk right now about the fact that this looks like it’s heading for a grand jury and there has already been some implication that the DA, Elton Mathis, has some history of being called a racist. Is this going to be Darren Wilson all over again?

And let’s talk about a time-honed strategy being used by the arresting officer: see a “suspicious” driver, speed up behind them, wait until they move out of your way, pull them over either because (1) they made a minor traffic violation while attempting to get out of your way or (2) because they were so eager to get…

Where the fuck are all you free speech mouth breathing motherfuckers? Free speech is not the right to be a snide little shit on the internet without people calling you on it. Free speech is the right to criticize the state, and by association anyone acting on behalf of the state, like an on-duty motherfucking police…

I can’t tell from your tone what you actually believe about rape and serial rapists, so my apologies if you already know this & agree, but maybe it’ll be useful for other people reading the thread who aren’t aware of the stats. The most thorough report I’ve read is from 2002, but there’s no reason to assume the…

I know this follows closely on the heels of the Supreme Court decision, but it seems like it’s also a reaction to Obama’s Hobby Lobby loophole. If a fundamentalist Christian boss doesn’t want his employees taking birth control, under current law he has to submit an exemption and the healthcare department will provide…

Yes to all this. And I particularly like to have an audience who (1) will validate my feelings of rage when they are valid, commiserate with me, and then gently nudge me in the direction of other thoughts until I calm down, and (2) will acknowledge my feelings of rage when they are invalid, tell me they think I might…

I think you articulated it well. But I would counterpoint with this: white American appropriation of black American art is not new, nor is white appropriation limited to art (e.g. marijuana legalization movements by predominantly white hipsters), or to appropriation from black culture (e.g. war bonnets in fashion…

Absolutely agree that this is a useful piece of evidence in talking about gender bias, but for those interested, the study was performed in 2012, so it’s not super-new news.

First of all, thank you for this post because I got a TON of good recommendations out of it too. ;)

As Stacy London taught me, things don’t have to “match,” they just have to “go.”

Thanks for the reply and the info!

By the end of that quote, this is how I was picturing her:

Arizona here. I’ll see your marriage clerks and raise you SB-1070 (“papers please”), your Mitch McConnell and raise you a Jan Brewer, and your Rand Paul and raise you a John McCain.