Let’s start with how not to have a conversation about race: Here’s the July 11Minneapolis Star Tribune:
“Minneapolis cops working Lynx game walk out over player comments, warm-up jerseys. Police union leader says walkout is justified.“
The Lynx are Minnesota’s high-flying WNBA basketball team. An accompanying photo shows two players wearing black T-shirts bearing the words, “CHANGE STARTS WITH US. JUSTICE & ACCOUNTABILITY.” According to the caption, the Lynx players “observed a moment of silence in honor of Philando Castile” — the black man shot to death July 7 when a police officer in a St. Paul suburb stopped him for a broken taillight.
The report begins in the just-the-facts manner that American journalists are taught:
“Four off-duty Minneapolis police officers working the Minnesota Lynx game at Target Center on Saturday night walked off the job after the players held a news conference denouncing racial profiling, then wore Black Lives Matter pregame warm-up jerseys.”
So far, this is pretty standard stuff: There’s a conflict — the players denounced racial profiling, and wore Black Lives Matter jerseys, and the cops walked. This is what you’d expect, because, after all, “everybody knows” that cops and activists are antagonists.
[For more of this story, written by Todd Gitlin, go to http://billmoyers.com/story/mean-conversation-race/]
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