A cop once just shook his head at drunk early twenties me when I was shoplifting a pumpkin from in front of Safeway in broad daylight. I laughed, put it back, and walked away.

OMG, a guy who grew up in Virginia Beach (where you can and will be ticketed for swearing in public) and has spent most of his adulthood as a privileged man with lots o' money has a different take on something in the news to which he has no personal connection???? Nooooooooooo!!!!

These New Blacks man... I have a bunch of the 21st century Talented Tenth on my FB feed talking the same horseshit as Pharell. They think with their degrees and their nice homes and church tithes, they can declare racism over and want to see "both sides." They feel because they made it (ha!), they can lecture other…

Agree completely. I think it's sad that the easiest way to mainstream success for many black artists is still the ol' "making white people feel more comfortable about their racism" shuck-and-jive.

Two cops once caught 16-year-old me trespassing with a friend of mine, we had just dropped acid, still had the tabs on our tongue and were afraid to "mess it up" if we swallowed them. We were politely asked to leave. Another time the same friend and I were in a park after dark AND after curfew and we were smoking…

Hey, I have an idea! Let's find some rando white teenager who does typical teenage stuff like shoplifting and jaywalking and fighting and smoking weed, and then we'll just hold him up to intense public scrutiny and talk about how he's horrible and deserves to die and reflects poorly on the entire white race.

That was how I interpreted his "from the sky". Kind of like the entertainment industry version of the Ivory Tower.

Pharrell is so far removed from reality; his statements really need not be considered - ever - for any reason

Nu Blacks, have no sense.

Well you can always depend on this clown to shuck and jive to let white people feel good about their indifference and outright fear of black people.

Yeah. I mean, I am really good at suspending my own critical abilities — TOO GOOD, ONE MIGHT SAY — but god, turn them back on for a second, and that testimony is festering with lies.

Yeah. What's remarkable is that, even if you take Darren Wilson's own lengthy, messy, inconsistent, at-points-totally-implausible grand jury testimony at absolute face value and think he's 100% telling the truth — like, even if you read Wilson's story and believe that Mike Brown would reach for his waistband multiple…

There's only one person in this mess whose life is over, because Darren Wilson shot him.

Hello, to many White Americans black people aren't citizens. Heck to many we aren't even people.

It's also confusing, because 12 bullets, and whhhhaaaatttt do they mean by "the wrong time"?? Not during Jim Crow? What does it meannnnnn.

I can't. Darren Wilson's life is not over. He still lives and breathes and has good things to look forward to. You know who's life is over? Michael Brown. Because he is dead. Gone forever. That is what it means for a life to be over.

There's only one person in this mess whose life is over, and Darren Wilson shot him.