“And I soon gathered that being perceived as dangerous is a hazard in itself. I only needed to turn a corner into a dicey situation, or crowd some frightened, armed person in a foyer somewhere, or make an errant move after being pulled over by a policeman. Where fear and weapons meet — and they often do in urban America — there is always the possibility of death.” —Brent Staples, “Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Space,” a 1986 essay in Ms. Magazine
Brownsville in Brooklyn seems to have more eyes on it over the past decade than most parts of New York; maybe even of the country. Over the past decade, it has been the focus of more than tens of thousands of New York Police Department police stops, and then of major newspaper investigations doing their part in exposing these stops — or violations — depending on one’s perspective.
For a section of the city that is less than 2 square miles, Brownsville has the highest concentration of public housing in the country. There are 18 New York City Housing Authority developments, to be exact. Their towering brick structures are surrounded by black metal gates and lit brightly by NYPD lighting stands during the night.
[For more of this story go to http://bokeh.jjie.org/searchin...ar-and-weapons-meet/]
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