Hate Cops Quotes

I really hate threesomes when one of the participants is dead.

You saw a ghost, didn't you?" he said. To my relief, I managed to laugh. "Hate to break it to you, but there's no such thing as ghosts." Huh." His gaze traveled around the laundry room, like a cop searching for an escaped convict. When he turned that piercing look on me, its intensity sucked the backbone out of me. What do you see, Chloe?" I -I-I don't s-s-s-" Slow down." He snapped the words, impatient. "What do they look like? Do they talk to you?" You really want to know?" Yeah." I chewed my lip, then lifted onto my tiptoes. He bent to listen. They wear white sheets with big eye holes. And they say 'Boo!'" I glowered up at him. "Now get out of my way." I expected him tosneer. Cross his arms and say, Make me, little girl.His lips twitched and I steeled myself, then I realized he was smiling.Laughing at me. He stepped aside. I swept past him to the stairs.

And at the end of the day, you don’t kill someone for opening a car door. If you do, you shouldn’t be a cop.

I hope none of them ask about my spring break. They went to Taipei, the Bahamas, Harry Potter World. I stayed in the hood and saw a cop kill my friend.

When I was twelve, my parents had two talks with me. One was the usual birds and bees. Well, I didn't really get the usual version. My mom, Lisa, is a registered nurse, and she told me what went where, and what didn't need to go here, there, or any damn where till I'm grown. Back then, I doubted anything was going anywhere anyway. While all the other girls sprouted breasts between sixth and seventh grade, my chest was as flat as my back. The other talk was about what to do if a cop stopped me. Momma fussed and told Daddy I was too young for that. He argued that I wasn't too young to get arrested or shot. "Starr-Starr, you do whatever they tell you to do," he said. "Keep your hands visible. Don't make any sudden moves. Only speak when they speak to you." I knew it must've been serious. Daddy has the biggest mouth of anybody I know, and if he said to be quiet, I needed to be quiet. I hope somebody had the talk with Khalil.

That's the trouble with cops. You're all set to hate their guts and then you meet one that goes human on you.

I hate that," I said. "It's like there's no human beings in the chain of responsibility, just things-that-happen. It's the ultimate cop-out. The system did it. The company did it. The government did it. What about the person who pulls the trigger?

There are places where cops are not hated, Captain. But in those places you wouldn't be a cop.

The thing is, I don't even hate cops. To tell you the truth, I actually feel a little sorry for them.

Everybody wants to talk about how Khalil died,” I say. “But this isn’t about how Khalil died. It’s about the fact that he lived. His life mattered. Khalil lived!” I look at the cops again. “You hear me? Khalil lived!

You'd be surprised at how many of us want justice in this case," says Uncle Carlos. "But of course, classic Maverick. Every cop is automatically a bad cop.

The other talk was about what to do if a cop stopped me. Momma fussed and told Daddy I was too young for that. He argued that I wasn’t too young to get arrested or shot.

My heart pounds loudly, but Daddy’s instructions echo in my head: Get a good look at the cop’s face. If you can remember his badge number, that’s even better.

When Ben unfurls the T-shirts, there are two small problems. First, it turns out that a large T-shirt in a Georgia gas station is not the same size as a large T-shirt at, say, Old Navy. The gas station shirt is gigantic-more garbage bag than shirt. It is smaller than the graduation robes, but not by much. But this problem pales in comparison to the other problem, which is that both T-shirts are embossed with huge Confederate flags. Printed over the flag are the words HERITAGE NOT HATE. "Oh no you didn't," Radar says when I show him why we're laughing. "Ben Starling, you better not have bought your token black friend a racist shirt." "I just grabbed the first shirts I saw, bro." "Don't bro me right now," Radar says, but he's shaking his head and laughing. I hand him his shirt and he wiggles into it while driving with his knees. "I hope I get pulled over," he says. "I'd like to see how the cop responds to a black man wearing a Confederate T-shirt over a black dress.

With everything that’s going on, what can she say? “Sekani saw cops harass his daddy, but he’s doing so well in school. #ProudMom.” Or, “Starr saw her best friend die, keep her in your prayers, but my baby made the honor roll again. #Blessed.” Or even, “Tanks are rolling by outside, but Seven’s been accepted into six colleges so far. #HeIsGoingPlaces.

I did everything right, and it didn’t make a fucking difference. I’ve gotten death threats, cops harassed my family, somebody shot into my house, all kinds of shit. And for what?

Reverend Don Marxhausen disagreed with all the riffs on Satan. He saw two boys with hate in their eyes and assault weapons in their hands. He saw a society that needed to figure out how and why - fast. Blaming Satan was just letting them off easy, he felt, and copping out on our responsibility to investigate. The "end of days" fantasy was even more infuriating.

They went to Taipei, the Bahamas, Harry Potter World. I stayed in the hood and saw a cop kill my friend.

Jacob cut his gaze to me. I wasn't quiet sure how to convey, /I know we hate him, but based on the circumstances, it was the most logical thing to do/, with a nonverbal signal. I widened my eyes a little.

Reverend Don Marxhausen disagreed with all the riffs on Satan. He saw two boys with hate in their hearts and assault weapons in their hands. He saw a society that needed to figure out how and why—fast. Blaming Satan was just letting them off easy, he felt, and copping out on our responsibility to investigate. The “end of days” fantasy was even more infuriating.

It would be easy to quit if it was just about me, Khalil, that night, and that cop. It's about way more than that though. It's about Seven. Sekani. Kenya. DeVante. It's also about Oscar. Aiyana. Trayvon. Rekia. Michael. Eric. Tamir. John. Ezell. Sandra. Freddie. Alton. Philando. It's even about that little boy in 1955 who nobody recognized at first--Emmett. The messed-up part? There are so many more. Yet I think it'll change one day. How? I don't know. When? I definitely don't know. Why? Because there will always be someone ready to fight. Maybe it's my turn.

We live in, arguably, the most developed, powerful country in the world, yet we are still unable to find a way to keep corrupt cops from killing black men. Why is that?

Jeffco had a problem. Before Eric and Dylan shot themselves, officers had discovered files on the boys. The cops had twelve pages from Eric’s Web site, spewing hate and threatening to kill. For detectives, a written confession, discovered before the killers were captured, was a big break. It certainly simplified the search warrant. But for commanders, a public confession, which they had sat on since 1997—that could be a PR disaster.

 “You have Hydra sperm.  Captain America would hate your sperm.” Whoa. “Now, let’s not say things we’re going to regret in the heat of the moment.

There’s something else,” he said. “What?” “I wasn’t going to mention it, but I want you to understand why I have to do this.” “Jesus, Jolu, what?” “I hate to say it, but you’re white. I’m not. White people get caught with cocaine and do a little rehab time. Brown people get caught with crack and go to prison for twenty years. White people see cops on the street and feel safer. Brown people see cops on the street and wonder if they’re about to get searched. The way the DHS is treating you? The law in this country has always been like that for us.

turn to the cops. “I’m sick of this! Just like y’all think all of us are bad because of some people, we think the same about y’all. Until you give us a reason to think otherwise, we’ll keep protesting.

Listen, you gotta understand one thing about me. I hate cops. They're worse than the yakuza—worse than the SDF. They're awful, the things they do. They strut around and love nothing better than tormenting the weak.

What, you think if you live next door to them, they'll treat you different?" "Why does it always have to be about race with you?" Uncle Carlos asks. "Other races aren't killing us nearly as much as we're killing ourselves." "Ne-gro, please. If I kill Tyrone, I'm going to prison. If a cop kills me, he's getting put on leave. Maybe.

Three of my daughters are Asian American. I've seen through their eyes the racist ways in which Trump labeled Covid-19 the "China virus," China plague," and "Kung Flu."...When my youngest, who is still in elementary school, heard the words, she immediately understood the hate was direct against Asian Americans--directed against her. I read somewhere that Trump and his people find community in rejoicing the suffering of those they hate and fear--that cruelty is the point. This is not easy to explain to a six-year-old.

No cop on earth would call his badge a government identification document. Cops don’t work for the government. Not in their minds. They work for their department. For each other. For the whole worldwide brotherhood. For the city, just maybe, at the very best. But not the government. They hate the government. The government is their worst enemy, at every level. National, county, local, no one understands cops and everyone makes their lives more and more miserable with an endless stream of bullshit. A cop wouldn’t use the word.

My grandma leaned out the backseat window, pointing at the cops. "Just so you know, I had no part in this! Ask anyone. They'll all tell you: I hate crime." "Well, we won't mention to them how you 'forgot' to pay for those slippers at Wal-Mart, now, will we?" my mom hissed.

Fairy tale? No. But I’m not giving up on a better ending. It would be easy to quit if it was just about me, Khalil, that night, and that cop. It’s about way more than that though. It’s about Seven. Sekani. Kenya. DeVante. It’s also about Oscar. Aiyana. Trayvon. Rekia. Michael. Eric. Tamir. John. Ezell. Sandra. Freddie. Alton. Philando. It’s even about that little boy in 1955 who nobody recognized at first—Emmett.

You and McNab sat around talking about women and sports." "I don't believe we got to sports. He had a woman on his mind." Eve's sneer vanished. "You talked to him about Peabody? Damn it, Roarke." "I could hardly slap him back. He's so pitifully smitten." "Oh." She winced. "Don't use that word." "It fits. In fact, if he took my advice ..." He turned his wrist, glanced at the unit fastened there. "They should be well into their first date by now." "Date? Date? Why did you do that? Why did you go and do something like that? Couldn't you leave it alone? They'd have had sex until they burned out on it, and everything would go back to normal." He angled his head. "That didn't work for us, did it?" "We don't work together." Then, when his eyes brightened with pure amusement, she showed her teeth. "Officially. You start mixing cops and romance and case files and gooey looks at briefings, you've got nothing but a mess. Next thing you know, Peabody will be wearing lip dye and smelly girl stuff and dragging body skimmers under her uniform." She dropped her head in her hands. "Then they'll have tiffs and misunderstandings that have nothing whatsoever to do with the job. They'll come at me from both sides, and before you know it, they'll be telling me things I absolutely do not want to know. And when they break it off and decide they hate each other down to the guts, I'll have to hear about that, too, and why they can't possibly work together, or breathe the same air, until I have no choice, absolutely no choice, but to kick both of their asses." "Eve, your sunny view on life never fails to lift my spirits." "And -- " She poked him in the chest. "It's all your fault." He grabbed her finger, nipped it, not so gently. "If that's the case, I'm going to insist they name their first child after me.

Has this situation made you fearful of cops?" she eventually asks. "I don't know," I say truthfully. "My uncle's a cop. I know not all cops are bad. And they risk their lives, you know? I'm always scared for my uncle. But I'm tired of them assuming. Especially when it comes to black people.

And neither did talking!' I snap. 'I did everything right, and it didn't make a fucking difference. I've gotten death threats, cops harassed my family, somebody shot into my house, all kinds of shit. And for what? Justice Khalil won't get? They don't give a fuck about us, so fine. I no longer give a fuck.

A number of people who I’ve talked to about this assume that I got into a fight with the cops. (Because of, y'know, the militant politics.) I actually had an audience member come up to me once and ask me if I paid taxes. Of course I pay taxes! I pay taxes for exactly the same reason that I hate paying taxes — because I think my government is terrifying and stupid. I don't need the IRS kicking my door down and taking my meticulously alphabetized collection of Tijuana bibles.

The other talk was about what to do if a cop stopped me. Momma fussed and told Daddy I was too young for that. He argued that I wasn’t too young to get arrested or shot. “Starr-Starr, you do whatever they tell you to do,” he said. “Keep your hands visible. Don’t make any sudden moves. Only speak when they speak to you.

He nods. “Even if he was, I knew that boy. Watched him grow up with you. He was more than any bad decision he made,” he says. “I hate that I let myself fall into that mind-set of trying to rationalize his death. And at the end of the day, you don’t kill someone for opening a car door. If you do, you shouldn’t be a cop.

Straining to hear, I can make out something acoustic. Coming from...the backyard? I glance down from my bedroom window and feel my jaw fall open. Matt Finch is standing below my window, guitar strapped across his chest. I pull my window up, and I expect the song from that old movie - the one about a guy with a trench coat and the big radio and his heart on his sleeve. But it's not that. It's not anything I recognise, and I strain to make out the lyrics: Stop being ridiculous, stop being ridiculous, Reagan. What an asshole. The mesh screen and two floors between us don't seem like enough to protect him from my anger. "Nice apology," I call down to him. "I've apologised thirteen times," he yells back, "and so far you haven't called me back." I open my mouth to say it doesn't matter, but he's already redirecting the song. "Now I'm gonna stand here until you forgive me," he sings loudly, "or at least until you hear me out, la-la, oh-la-la. I drove seven hours overnight, and I won't leave until you come out here." (...) "This is private property!" My throat feel coarse from how loudly I'm yelling. "And that doesn't even rhyme!" The guitar chord continues as he sings, "Then call the cops, call the cops, call the cops..." I storm downstairs, my feet pounding against the staircase. When I turn the corner, my dad looks almost amused from his seat in the recliner. Noticing my expression, he stares back at his newspaper, as if I won't notice him. (...) "Dad. How did Matt know which window was mine?" "Well..." he peeks over the sports section. "I reckon I told him." "You talked to him?" My voice is no longer a voice. It's a shriek. "God, Dad!" He juts out his chin, defensive. "How was I supposed to know you had some sort of drama with him? He shows up, lookin' to serenade my daughter. Thought it seemed innocent enough. Sweet, even. Old-fashioned." "It's not any of those things! I hate him!

I didn’t mention that the officer pointed his gun at me. I didn’t say something right, and now that cop’s not getting arrested.

Ne-gro, please. If I kill Tyrone, I'm going to prison. If a cop kills me, he's getting put on leave. Maybe.

Hutter thought, not for the first time, that she hated a lot of cops. Ugly, mean drunks who believed the worst of everyone.

Police reform starts with the acknowledgement of police bias.

Tell the cops the truth, and don't let them put words in your mouth. god gave you a brain. you don't need theirs.

Will hated those cops, had worked more than a few cases where he’d gotten them kicked off the force. You couldn’t say you were one of the good guys if you did the same thing the bad guys did.

Your fear will always be triggered by your creativity, because creativity asks you to enter into realms of uncertain outcome, and fear hates uncertain outcome. Your fear—programmed by evolution to be hypervigilant and insanely overprotective—will always assume that any uncertain outcome is destined to end in a bloody, horrible death. Basically, your fear is like a mall cop who thinks he’s a Navy SEAL:

I know what my job is, and I'm damned good at it." When he snorted she came back down two steps. She came down slowly, her movements deliberate, because her own temper was much too close to the boil. "Good enough to have figured out why you've hated the sight of me since I first walked in that door. Since you understood Roarke had feelings for me. Part A was easy -- a first-year rookie could have snagged onto it. I'm a cop, and that's enough for you to hold me in contempt." He offered a thin smile. "I've had little reason to admire those in your profession." "Part B was tougher." She came down another step so that their eyes were level. "I thought I had that figured, too, but I didn't realize that Part B had a couple of stages. Stage one: I'm not one of the glamorous, well-bred stunners that Roarke socialized with. I haven't got the looks or the pedigree or the style to suit you." He felt a quick tug of shame, but inclined his head. "No, you don't. He could have had anyone, his pick of the cream of society." "But you didn't want just anyone for him, Summerset. That's stage two, and I just figured that out this morning. You resent me because I'm not Marlena. That's who you wanted for him," she said quietly as the color slipped out of his cheeks. "You hoped he'd find someone who reminded you of her, instead you got stuck with an inferior mode. Tough luck all around.

He was more than any bad decision he made,” he says. “I hate that I let myself fall into that mind-set of trying to rationalize his death. And at the end of the day, you don’t kill someone for opening a car door. If you do, you shouldn’t be a cop.

Every corner has a cop [coddling a liquor store]. Protecting their Notion of freedom. // My neighborhood eats fear. Mothers are getting // handcuffed & harassed. Homes are being Crushed [like cigarette butts]. Everyone I know Hates the racist police & wants a revolution.

But there are no criminals here Just people surviving against all odds Multi and never ending circumstances of racial repression Class war accompanied with post-traumatic stress syndrome-like symptoms Marshal law-like conditions Magic trick tactics transforming Brown and Black pearls into perils with K-9’s searching the perimeter Face filled with hate abra cadabra cop smiles with a gun and a badge The bullet is faster than the eye Judges able to devour justice with a single courtroom motion not missing a crumb Now you have your freedom then you don’t

You probably didn’t intend it, but you’ve done me a favor. With an assist from Detective Dayton. You’ve solved a problem for me. No man likes to betray a friend but I wouldn’t betray an enemy into your hands. You’re not only a gorilla, you’re an incompetent. You don’t know how to operate a simple investigation. I was balanced on a knife-edge and you could have swung me either way. But you had to abuse me, throw coffee in my face, and use your fists on me when I was in a spot where all I could do was take it. From now on I wouldn’t tell you the time by the clock on your own wall. ” For some strange reason he sat there perfectly still and let me say it. Then he grinned. “You’re just a little old cop-hater, friend. That’s all you are, shamus, just a little old cop-hater.” “There are places where cops are not hated, Captain. But in those places you wouldn’t be a cop.

The Dope Show" The drugs they say make us feel so hollow We love in vain narcissistic and so shallow The cops and queers to swim you have to swallow Hate today, no love for tomorrow We're all stars now in the dope show We're all stars now in the dope show [Chorus:] There's a lot of pretty, pretty ones That want to get you high But all the pretty, pretty ones Will leave you low and blow your mind We're all stars now in the dope show We're all stars now in the dope show [x2] They love you when you're on all the covers When you're not then they love another The drugs they say are made in California We love your face We'd really like to sell you The cops and queers make good-looking models I hate today Who will I wake up with tomorrow? [Chorus] [x2] They love you when you're on all the covers When you're not then they love another [Chorus] They'll blow your mind We're all stars now in the dope show We're all stars now in the dope show

Once upon a time there was a hazel-eyed boy with dimples. I called him Khalil. The world called him a thug. He lived, but not nearly long enough, and for the rest of my life I’ll remember how he died. Fairy tale? No. But I’m not giving up on a better ending. It would be easy to quit if it was just about me, Khalil, that night, and that cop. It’s about way more than that though. It’s about Seven. Sekani. Kenya. DeVante. It’s also about Oscar. Aiyana. Trayvon. Rekia. Michael. Eric. Tamir. John. Ezell. Sandra. Freddie. Alton. Philando. It’s even about that little boy in 1955 who nobody recognized at first—Emmett. The messed-up part? There are so many more.

You married, Zig?“ I asked him. "Yeah, twenty-one years.” He actually glanced at his wedding ring as he said it. “You?” I looked down at my bare left hand. I’d never had the compulsion to do that before. How lame. “I’m, uh… .” Great, I couldn’t say it. But I had to. The longer I waited, the worse my anxiety would be. And I couldn’t imagine it feeling any worse than it did already. “I’m moving in with someone. Just as soon as we find a place that’s not haunted.” Say it, Vic. Damn it. Tell him. “That a common problem, spirit activity in a …?” “Jacob Marks. From the Twelfth. You know him? I’m moving in with him.” Zig almost did a spit-take. The color drained from his ruddy cheeks, leaving him a strange shade of gray. His already-bulging eyes bulged even more. And then a barrier slammed down somewhere behind them and he pressed his lips together hard. Shit. I’d thought I was up for the conversation, but evidently I was a much bigger pussy than I realized. My stomach clenched up and I fought the urge to tell Zig I was just kidding, and laugh, and give him a hearty, heterosexual clap on the back. God, I hate confrontation. I steeled myself for the tirade that was sure to come. The one where I was a drug addict, a shitty cop, and a miserable excuse for a human being. Zig blinked. He cleared his throat. “Marks,” he said. “Sure. We’ve met.” And then he looked back at his notepad with every ounce of attention he had.

You mean when you called Khalil a drug dealer?" He nods. "Even if he was, I knew that boy. Watched him grow up with you. He was more than any bad decision he made," he says. "I hate that I let myself fall into that mind-set of trying to rationalize his death. And at the end of the day, you don't kill someone for opening a car door. If you do, you shouldn't be a cop.

Bull had a sentimental streak about the old days in America, especially 1910, when you could get morphine in a drugstore without prescription and Chinese smoked opium. in their evening windows and the country was wild and brawling and free, with abundance and any kind of freedom for everyone. His chief hate was Washington bureaucracy; second to that, liberals; then cops.

You know those FBI shows on TV? Where they do the profiling?” “Yeah.” “Cops hate that stuff. While it's all well and good to sit behind a desk and have assigned characteristics and fancy medical names for criminals,” Jerry said in a prissy voice, “at the end of the day, you just don't know what anybody's gonna do. You gotta prepare for everything. Human beings are unpredictable. After three decades with PD, I still get surprised.

These were my countrymen, these were the new Californians. With their bright polo shirts and sunglasses, they were in paradise, they belonged. But down on Main Street, down on Towne and San Pedro, and for a mile on lower Fifth Street were the tens of thousands of others; they couldn't afford sunglasses or a four-bit polo shirt and they hid in the alleys by day and slunk off to flop houses by night. A cop won't pick you up for vagrancy in Los Angeles if you wear a fancy polo shirt and a pair of sunglasses. But if there is dust on your shoes and that sweater you wear is thick like the sweaters they wear in the snow countries, he'll grab you. So get yourselves a polo shirt boys, and a pair of sunglasses, and white shoes, if you can. Be collegiate. It'll get you anyway. After a while, after big doses of the Times and the Examiner, you too will whoop it up for the sunny south. You'll eat hamburgers year after year and live in dusty, vermin-infested apartments and hotels, but every morning you'll see the mighty sun, the eternal blue of the sky, and the streets will be full of sleek women you never will possess, and the hot semi-tropical nights will reek of romance, you'll never have, but you'll still be in paradise, boys, in the land of sunshine. As for the folks back home, you can lie to them, because they hate the truth anyway, they won't have it, because soon or late they want to come out to paradise, too.

She sprays cops when they have their windows down and are cruising slowly past our house because she hates them after what they did when Grandpa died, and just period. When they get out of the car and walk up to her she says things like, Here comes Rocket Man! Send in the clowns! The cops smile because they think she’s just a crazy old lady. But she really means business. She hates them. She doesn’t want to hate anybody but she can’t help it and she isn’t even going to pray about it because she thinks God secretly hates them too.

At the subway station you wait fifteen minutes on the platform for a train. Finally a local, enervated by graffiti, shuffles into the station. You get a seat and hoist a copy of the New York Post. The Post is the most shameful of your several addictions. You hate to support this kind of trash with your thirty cents, but you are a secret fan of Killer Bees, Hero Cops, Sex Fiends, Lottery Winners, Teenage Terrorists, Liz Taylor, Tough Tots, Sicko Creeps, Living Nightmares, Life on Other Planets, Spontaneous Human Combustion, Miracle Diets and Coma Babies.

There was a baby wailing in morning-related outrage a few apartments away, so Nona walked on the balls of her feet to not add to the noise. The people underneath hated it if you walked loudly, and Pyrrha said they had militia links and not to piss them off because they were also hungover ninety percent of the time. This was unfair, because the person above them never took their shoes off inside, which surely meant they were allowed to complain about that. But Pyrrha said they shouldn’t piss them off because they were a cop. Pyrrha called it the shit sandwich. Pyrrha always seemed to know everything about everybody.

Don't be scared 'bout Monday. Tell the cops the truth, and don't let them put words in your mouth. God gave you a brain. You don't need theirs. And remember that you didn't do nothing wrong--the cop did. Don't let them make you think otherwise." ..."You think the cops want Khalil to have justice?" I ask. Thump-thump-thump. Thump ... thump ... thump. The truth casts a shadow over the kitchen--people like us in situations like this become hashtags, but they rarely get justice. I think we all wait for that one time though, that one time when it ends right. Maybe this can be it. "I don't know," Daddy says. "I guess we'll find out.

I don’t want to hold you back.” Shannon’s face scrunched up in confusion. “Why would you think you hold me back?” John clamped his jaw and looked away. “Ah,” she said softly. John hated that one small sound, and the wealth of meaning that went with it. Something popped in his jaw. “Let me tell you something, John.” She leaned back in the chair and took a deep breath. He didn’t dare look at her, but the breath stalled in his lungs as he waited. He kept his face deliberately turned to the window. “I want you to listen to what I say, and actually hear. Your disability is more of a hurdle to you than me, and I don’t mean physically. I’ve lived with a paraplegic, so I’m probably a little more cognizant of what you go through every day than anybody else here. As well as the kind of care you may eventually need.” He caught a glimpse of her hand in the air, and he assumed she had waved at the building. John had to admit, she was probably right. Other than Duncan, none of the other operatives were wheelchair-bound. Several had been in the chair during recovery, but only he and his partner had spent any length of time in one. She was silent, but she leaned toward him enough to catch his gaze with her own. John couldn’t look away from her gentle smile. “I like you. A lot. I wasn’t flirting with that cop because he didn’t do anything for me. You’re the one that makes my heart race.” Fear

I wiped the blade against my jeans and walked into the bar. It was mid-afternoon, very hot and still. The bar was deserted. I ordered a whisky. The barman looked at the blood and asked: ‘God?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘S’pose it’s time someone finished that hypocritical little punk, always bragging about his old man’s power…’ He smiled crookedly, insinuatingly, a slight nausea shuddered through me. I replied weakly: ‘It was kind of sick, he didn’t fight back or anything, just kept trying to touch me and shit, like one of those dogs that try to fuck your leg. Something in me snapped, the whingeing had ground me down too low. I really hated that sanctimonious little creep.’ ‘So you snuffed him?’ ‘Yeah, I’ve killed him, knifed the life out of him, once I started I got frenzied, it was an ecstasy, I never knew I could hate so much.’ I felt very calm, slightly light-headed. The whisky tasted good, vaporizing in my throat. We were silent for a few moments. The barman looked at me levelly, the edge of his eyes twitching slightly with anxiety: There’ll be trouble though, don’tcha think?’ ‘I don’t give a shit, the threats are all used up, I just don’t give a shit.’ ‘You know what they say about his old man? Ruthless bastard they say. Cruel…’ ‘I just hope I’ve hurt him, if he even exists.’ ‘Woulden wanna cross him merself,’ he muttered. I wanted to say ‘yeah, well that’s where we differ’, but the energy for it wasn’t there. The fan rotated languidly, casting spidery shadows across the room. We sat in silence a little longer. The barman broke first: ‘So God’s dead?’ ‘If that’s who he was. That fucking kid lied all the time. I just hope it’s true this time.’ The barman worked at one of his teeth with his tongue, uneasily: ‘It’s kindova big crime though, isn’t it? You know how it is, when one of the cops goes down and everything’s dropped ’til they find the guy who did it. I mean, you’re not just breaking a law, your breaking LAW.’ I scraped my finger along my jeans, and suspended it over the bar, so that a thick clot of blood fell down into my whisky, and dissolved. I smiled: ‘Maybe it’s a big crime,’ I mused vaguely ‘but maybe it’s nothing at all…’ ‘…and we have killed him’ writes Nietzsche, but—destituted of community—I crave a little time with him on my own. In perfect communion I lick the dagger foamed with God’s blood.

Racism was a constant presence and absence in the Obama White House. We didn’t talk about it much. We didn’t need to—it was always there, everywhere, like white noise. It was there when Obama said that it was stupid for a black professor to be arrested in his own home and got criticized for days while the white police officer was turned into a victim. It was there when a white Southern member of Congress yelled “You lie!” at Obama while he addressed a joint session of Congress. It was there when a New York reality show star built an entire political brand on the idea that Obama wasn’t born in the United States, an idea that was covered as national news for months and is still believed by a majority of Republicans. It was there in the way Obama was talked about in the right-wing media, which spent eight years insisting that he hated America, disparaging his every move, inventing scandals where there were none, attacking him for any time that he took off from work. It was there in the social media messages I got that called him a Kenyan monkey, a boy, a Muslim. And it was there in the refusal of Republicans in Congress to work with him for eight full years, something that Obama was also blamed for no matter what he did. One time, Obama invited congressional Republicans to attend a screening of Lincoln in the White House movie theater—a Steven Spielberg film about how Abraham Lincoln worked with Congress to pass the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery. Not one of them came. Obama didn’t talk about it much. Every now and then, he’d show flashes of dark humor in practicing the answer he could give on a particular topic. What do you think it will take for these protests to stop? “Cops need to stop shooting unarmed black folks.” Why do you think you have failed to bring the country together? “Because my being president appears to have literally driven some white people insane.” Do you think some of the opposition you face is about race? “Yes! Of course! Next question.” But he was guarded in public. When he was asked if racism informed the strident opposition to his presidency, he’d carefully ascribe it to other factors.

So, who are they really, these hundred thousand white supremacists? They're every white guy who believed that this land was his land, made for you and me. They're every down-on-his-luck guy who just wanted to live a decent life but got stepped on, every character in a Bruce Springsteen or Merle Haggard song, every cop, soldier, auto mechanic, steelworker, and construction worker in America's small towns who can't make ends meet and wonders why everyone else is getting a break except him. But instead of becoming Tom Joad, a left-leaning populist, they take a hard right turn, ultimately supporting the very people who have dispossessed them. They're America's Everymen, whose pain at downward mobility and whose anger at what they see as an indifferent government have become twisted by a hate that tells them they are better than others, disfigured by a resentment so deep that there are no more bridges to be built, no more ladders of upward mobility to be climbed, a howl of pain mangled into the scream of a warrior. Their rage is as sad as it is frightening, as impotent as it is shrill.

Roth blinked, then nodded slowly. “I hate making them. I haven’t gotten where I am on the job by indulging my temper or apologizing for it. Neither, I imagine, have you. Women are still more closely scrutinized in the department and more strictly judged.” “That may be true, Captain. I don’t let it concern me.” “Then you’re a better woman than I, Dallas, or a great deal less ambitious. Because it burns the living hell out of me.” She inhaled, hissed the breath out through her teeth. “My coming at you as I have has been an emotional reaction, an indulgence again, that was both inappropriate and ill-advised. I’m going to tell you that I overreacted to Kohli’s death because I liked him, very much. I believe I overreacted to Mills because I disliked him. Very much.” She glanced back at the car. “He was a son of a bitch, a mean-spirited man who made no secret that, in his opinion, women should be having babies, cooking pies, and not wearing a badge. He disliked blacks, Jews, Asians . . . hell, he disliked everyone who wasn’t just what he was: an overfed white male. But he was my cop, and I want whoever opened him up that way.

Screw that lieutenant and screw being suspended or fired! I’ll get another job! One that doesn’t turn me into a human target for every criminal with a grudge against the law because he got his stupid ass arrested for breaking the law and now hates cops!

This was like an episode of Cop Rock—so bad you can’t take your eyes off of it. It was a novel sensation because normally I was the one who’d screwed the karmic pooch a little too long and was inevitably caught with his dick in the dog. But that wasn’t the case this time. I was going to enjoy it . . . or so I thought.

I wondered if it had eaten a suspect. If I had, I hoped the suspect deserved it. It seemed like a good cop, as such things went, and I’d hate to think less of it.

It is not known why motorists, who sing the joys of the open road, spend so much petrol every weekend grinding their way to Southend and Brighton and Margate, in the stench of each other’s exhausts, one hand on the horn and one foot on the brake, their eyes starting from their orbits in the nerve-racking search for cops, corners, blind turnings, and cross-road suicides. They ride in a baffled fury, hating each other. They arrive with shattered nerves and fight for parking places. They return, blinded by the headlights of fresh arrivals, whom they hate even worse than they hate each other.

Cait hated Christmas. It was amateur hour for drinking, full of awkward office parties and old guys looking to cop a feel after one too many whiskeys.

Well, one of my cousins fell for their sister. Hell, I guess we all kind of fell for her. But she fell for him back. Our families weren’t having any of it, though. They hated each other. They wouldn’t let them be together. My cousin and her ended up going missing during that flood on New Year’s a couple years back. The cops and the whole town looked for them. We thought they’d run away at first, but they found the car a few days later. Said they died fucking in the back seat.

Thinking about Thailand tends to make me angry, and until I started writing this book, I tried not to do it. I preferred it to stay tucked away in the back of my mind. But I do think about Thailand sometimes. Usually late at night, when I've been awake long enough to see the curtain patterns through the darkness and the shapes of the books on my shelves. At those times I make an effort to remember sitting in the glade with the shadow of the clock-hand branch lying across the ferns, smoking my cigarette. I choose this moment because it was the last time I could pinpoint that I was me being myself. Being normal, with nothing much going through my head apart from how pretty the island was, and how quiet. It isn't that from then on every second in Thailand was bad. Good things happened. Loads of good things. And mundane things, too: washing my face in the morning, swimming, fixing some food, whatever. But in retrospect, all those instances are colored by what was going on around them. Sometimes it feels to me that I walked into the glade and lit the cigarette, and someone else came along and finished it. Finished it, stubbed it out, flicked it into the bushes, then went to find Etienne and Françoise. It's a cop-out, because it's another thing that distances me from what happened, but that's how it feels. This other person did things I wouldn't do. It wasn't just our morals that were at odds, there were little character differences, too. The cigarette butt - the other guy flicked it into the bushes. I'd have done something else. Buried it maybe. I hate littering, let alone littering in a protected Marine park. It's hard to explain. I don't believe in possession or the supernatural. I know that in real terms it was me who flicked the cigarette butt. Fuck it. I've been relying on an idea that these things would become clear to me as I wrote them down, but it isn't turning out that way.

That would be hard," the first cop said, "seeing as Madison Kate Danvers was just murdered inside The Laughing Clown tonight.

Unlike homicides that occur at the hands of non-police, when cops kill, there is the presumption that the killer is in the right, that his or her decision was reasoned and necessary and done in the name of public good and safety, not as a result of poor training and surely not as part of the long history of police violence rooted in racial hate—despite the fact that cops were created in this nation specifically and solely to hunt Black people seeking freedom.

The DFL headquarters was a low white-brick building in a St. Paul business park across the Mississippi from downtown that possibly looked hip for fifteen minutes after it was built but no longer did. Lucas talked to a receptionist, who made a call. Schariff came out and got him, and said, “We’re down in the conference room.” “Who’s we?” Lucas asked. “Me and Daryl Larson, our attorney,” Schariff said. He was a stocky, dark-haired man with a neatly trimmed beard and dark-rimmed glasses. He was wearing a white shirt with a couple of pens in a plastic pocket protector. In any other circumstance, Lucas would have been willing to arrest him on the basis of the pocket protector alone. “I asked, and everybody said when you’re talking to a cop . . . especially one investigating the Grant-Smalls fight . . .” “Okay,” Lucas said. Larson was a tall, thin man whom Lucas knew through Weather’s association with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Larson raised money for the orchestra, usually by wheedling rich wives; it’d worked with Weather. When Lucas stepped into the room, Larson put down the paper he’d been reading and stood to shake hands. “Lucas, nice to see you. How’s Weather?” “Broke. She’s broke. She’s got no money left. She’s wondering how we’re going to feed the kids.” “Hate to hear that,” Larson said, with a toothy smile. “I’ll call her with my condolences.” The pleasantries out of the way, they settled into the conference chairs and Lucas outlined some of what he knew and believed about Tubbs’s disappearance. He finished by saying, “You guys are probably not going to want to talk about this, because when the media puts Tubbs’s disappearance together with the porn trick . . . it’s gonna look bad.

Yes, sir. Well, when we knew where our sector was going to be, I gathered all my officers and senior NCOs, and some junior NCOs and troops as well, and told them what I wanted. I told them we had to operate in a way that would not make the locals hate us enough to fight us. Then I asked how we could do that. They talked, and I listened. I had an advantage in that we have a company of National Guardsmen attached. A lot of them are cops. I think cops understand this kind of situation better than a lot of soldiers do. “The cops made one very important point right at the beginning. They said the key to keeping the peace is to de-escalate situations rather than escalate them. Soldiers are taught to escalate. If something isn’t working, bring in more firepower. Cops don’t do that, because it enrages the community and turns it against them. So that was one piece of the puzzle.

McDonald, who was known to hate policemen, was once approached by two cops for a two-dollar donation. “We’re burying a policeman,” one of them said, to which Mike responded, “Here’s ten dollars. Bury five of them.

Jaime was sent to watch the cops, and I was to track the girl’s every move. Over the next four months, that’s exactly what I’d done. Unfortunately, I hadn’t just tracked her every move. I’d fucking fallen for her. A girl who, at the time, I’d never spoken to. And now . . . a girl who would always hate me.

It’s in that second that I realize my front door is open, and then Logan charges across the room like a bull and hits Trip in the side, tumbling with him to the floor. “Logan!” I cry, tugging on his shoulder. He has his hands around Trip’s throat and noises are coming from his mouth that I don’t understand. I’ve never seen him this angry, but apparently intense emotion affects his speech. Trip grunts from beneath him, and I see what’s going to happen before it ever does. Trip reaches for an urn that’s on the floor by the couch, and he picks it up to hit Logan over the head with it. It bounces off his back, though, and just tumbles to the floor. It’s plastic, so I don’t know what Trip thought he was going to do with it. “Let him up, Logan,” I say, getting my face down near his. “Let him up. He’s drunk.” He doesn’t let him up, though. He keeps his knee on Trip’s chest. He’s not hurting him, but he’s holding him there. “What the fuck was he doing to you that made you slap him?” he asks. “He’s drunk. Let him up so he can go to bed.” Logan takes his thumbs off Trip’s windpipe, and Trip draws in a huge gulp of air. “Call the cops, Emily,” Trip starts screaming. Logan tightens his grip again. “He has to shut the fuck up if he wants me to let him up.” He looks down at Trip. “I hate a fucking drunk,” he says. “I’m going to let you up, and you’re going to go to your room. Do you understand?” Trip nods. Logan steps back, and Trip scrambles to his feet, nearly falling over in the process. “I should call the cops.” “So I can tell them how you were assaulting me?” I ask. He looks confused. “I just wanted to kiss you,” he whines. He’s not pretty when he drinks. Not at all. I shake my head. “But I didn’t want to be kissed.” I blow out a huge breath. I feel as though someone pulled the stopper on a big balloon inside me. “Go to bed, Trip. We’ll talk tomorrow.” Trip nods, unsteady on his feet. He goes into his room and closes the door.

I’m gonna tell you something, and you’re going to act like you never heard it. You get me?” “Sure,” Preacher said, throwing back the shot for courage. “I caught your girl crying today.” Shock settled over Preacher’s face. “That’s right, old man. She can’t figure you out. I think she loves you, Preacher. She’s waiting. She needs some attention. You with me?” Preacher nodded solemnly. He wasn’t going to go there with Mike. “She thinks you don’t find her attractive. Desirable.” “Aw, that’s crap,” Preacher said. He poured himself another shot. “I’m telling you. You don’t have any excuses here, pal. If you don’t step up, she’s going to think you don’t want her. Don’t care about her. I’d hate it if she thought that because I’m looking at the two of you, the three of you, and I think it’d be a damn stupid shame if you three lost one another because you’re an idiot. Now, I’m not going to try to guess why it’s not happening for you two. Preacher, buddy, it’s time to make it happen.” Preacher threw back that second shot while Mike merely lifted his, not drinking. “I thought you were messing with my girl,” Preacher confessed. “No, I was telling her to try to be patient with you because of your, you know, extra-low IQ.” Then he grinned at Preacher’s scowl. “You always used to mess with anybody’s girl,” he said. “Not just anybody’s girl, Preach. I’d never touch a brother’s woman, you should know that. Even I don’t cross that line. Even if you haven’t made it clear to Paige, you’ve made it clear to everyone else—she’s your girl. Besides, I’m no threat to you. It’s you she wants. Bad enough to make her cry about it.” Mike took in about half his drink and stood up. “Do yourself a favor, Preacher. Your girl needs you and you don’t want to let her down now. Don’t waste another minute.” He left the rest of his drink. He stared into Preacher’s eyes. “You better take care of business. You copy?” Copy, Preacher thought. Cop talk. “Yeah. I copy.” *

your fear will always show up—especially when you’re trying to be inventive or innovative. Your fear will always be triggered by your creativity, because creativity asks you to enter into realms of uncertain outcome, and fear hates uncertain outcome. Your fear—programmed by evolution to be hypervigilant and insanely overprotective—will always assume that any uncertain outcome is destined to end in a bloody, horrible death. Basically, your fear is like a mall cop who thinks he’s a Navy SEAL: He

Pretty rough-looking bruise you have there,” Preacher said. “Can I get you anything for that lip? I have a first aid kit in the kitchen.” “I’m fine,” she said, shaking her head. “How about if we settle up and—” “I don’t have anything for a kid’s fever. Except a room. With a lock on the door so you feel safe. You don’t want to pass up an offer like that in this weather, with a kid who might be coming down with something. I look big and mean, but I’m about as safe as you get. Unless you’re wildlife.” He grinned at her. “You don’t look mean,” she said timidly. “It can make women and little kids real nervous—and I hate that part. You on the run?” he asked her. She lowered her eyes. “What d’you think? I’m gonna call the cops? Who did that to you?” She immediately started to cry. “Aw. Hey. Don’t.” She put her head down on folded arms on the tabletop and sobbed. “Aw. Come on. Don’t do that. I never know what to do.” Hesitatingly, squeamishly, he touched her back and she jumped. He touched one of her hands, very lightly. “Come on, don’t cry. Maybe I can help.” “No. You can’t.” “Never know,” he said, lightly patting her hand. She

What the— Oh hell no. Candice! Open the door!” She pounded her hand against the door. “Candice Marie Jenkins! I am in my pajamas and do not have my purse, cell phone, or keys. Open the damn door! I hear you two laughing!” If I hadn’t been so pissed off at Mason for sending Rachel over here and for her agreeing to it, I’d have been laughing too. “I swear, if you do not unlock this door and let me in, I will go Cali bitch on your asses!” Okay, now I was laughing. The door next to ours opened and a middle-aged man looked between Rachel and me. He had his cell in his hand like he couldn’t decide if he was going to call the cops or not. “I will cut you!” Rachel swore and continued beating on the door; my neighbor looked at his phone and I groaned. Pushing away from the wall, I took the few steps over to Rachel, grabbed around her waist, and pulled her back with me. “Let me go, Kash. Candice! Open the door!” “Calm down, you’re freaking the neighbors out.” “I don’t care! I do not want to be locked out of my apartment so I’m forced to spend time with you! You’re rude, did you know that?” I couldn’t help but laugh at her. “I’m rude? If you hate me so much, you should have never agreed to come ‘help’ me.” I nodded and gave a reassuring smile to the now-confused-looking neighbor before walking us into my apartment and releasing her. “Excuse me for trying to be nice! That’s what people do, they help people, especially when they’re new to the— Holy crap, where’s all your stuff?

That’s how I met Griffin, you know.” “What, at the racetrack?” She gazed at him again for several long moments. “You must be really bored.” “I’m . . . interested in . . .” He took a deep breath. “The truth is, you’ve been handling all this shit really well, and I’m, well, curious about you. You’re tougher than I thought—smarter, too. Frankly, I just don’t get how someone like you got hooked up with Lamont and Trotta in the first place.” “Ah,” she said. “There’s that refreshing honesty again. It’s very appealing, Harry, the way you put all the cards out on the table for everyone to see.” Her voice hardened. “Except the last time you did that, you had an entire deck still up your sleeve. You can’t blame me for wondering what you’re hiding from me this time.” Alessandra was staring out the window again, her chin held self-righteously high. But it was just an act. She was working hard to hide her hurt. He could see it trembling in the corner of her mouth. It was there, too, lurking in her eyes. I thought you were special. “Jesus,” Harry said, hating the guilt that pressed down on him. “You want complete honesty? Sweetheart, I’m more than happy to give it to you. No secrets, no tactful white lies, just the hard truth—is that really what you want?” “Yes.” “Great,” he said. “Let’s see. We can start with the fact that I’m scared shitless about seeing my kids again. I don’t know if Emily’s going to recognize me—or worse, if I’m going to recognize her. I’m dreading talking to Marge, and I’m still worried about George. I knew a cop who was recovering nicely from a gunshot wound. One day he seemed fine. The next day he was back in the ICU with an infection. Day after, we were sitting shivah at his house. But I digress. When you sit that way, you look kind of like a beach ball with a head,” he continued. “Your haircut is really, really bad, I’m probably going to lose my job for helping you this way, and I’m dying to fuck you.” He glanced at her. “Honest enough for you?

You’re ready to drive back to school now?” Curtis asked, trying to conceal some of the disappointment in his voice. Genesis tilted Curtis’ head up to look at him. “Yes. I wish I could stay longer but the coach raised enough hell about me missing practice today.” “He bitched because you told him your brother is a cop and was shot at? That’s not considered a family emergency?” “No. He bitched because I told him my boyfriend needed me.” Curtis was so shocked he ended up leaning into Genesis’ broad chest to keep from falling over. Boyfriend. “You came back for me?” “If I came home every time God or Day were shot at, I’d flunk out of school for sure.” Genesis drawled. Curtis looked back down at his feet and Genesis gently lifted his head up again. “I know I said boyfriend. I want you to know, I’m not seeing anyone and I haven’t in a long time. I’m not a player or a tramp or whatever else guys try to be these days. I just want someone to spend time with that actually likes me. I just want to spend some time with you. It’s soon, I know. You don’t have to say boyfriend if you —” “No. B-boyfriend is fine,” Curtis said hurriedly. Genesis smiled and shook his head. “Good, then.” He bent and kissed Curtis lightly on his forehead. “I have to head back. I’ll call you later. And I’ll see you on Friday.” “Eight o’clock sharp,” Curtis whispered. Genesis kissed Curtis’ injured wrist and laid it back at his side. “Be good until I get back, bad boy.” Genesis leaned low until he was at Curtis’ ear. His voice threatening and growly. “I’d hate to have to spank you when I get back.” Curtis shivered hard as Genesis gave him a lingering kiss behind his ear, before backing up with a devious grin. Dear lord. How will I stop myself from behaving like a tramp? “Drive carefully, Gen.” Curtis said before Genesis got to the door. “Six days, beautiful,” Genesis said softly, right before he let the door close.

Ii do not walk with alienation everywhere I go in the world. I have been to small taverns in rural Ohio, big city bars, San Francisco bath houses, and in all these have felt welcome and happy. But walking through that sunglassed throng, I felt like a Martian. I didn't hate the feeling - indeed, being a black woman in the academy, it wasn't new to me - but it was interesting. I kept wondering: where is the performance? When will the performance start? Is this the performance - me walking through this space without sunglasses with all these Nordic quasi-hipster white people in multi-colored, motorcycle cop sunglasses?

What the— Oh hell no. Candice! Open the door!” She pounded her hand against the door. “Candice Marie Jenkins! I am in my pajamas and do not have my purse, cell phone, or keys. Open the damn door! I hear you two laughing!” If I hadn’t been so pissed off at Mason for sending Rachel over here and for her agreeing to it, I’d have been laughing too. “I swear, if you do not unlock this door and let me in, I will go Cali bitch on your asses!” Okay, now I was laughing. The door next to ours opened and a middle-aged man looked between Rachel and me. He had his cell in his hand like he couldn’t decide if he was going to call the cops or not. “I will cut you!” Rachel swore and continued beating on the door; my neighbor looked at his phone and I groaned. Pushing away from the wall, I took the few steps over to Rachel, grabbed around her waist, and pulled her back with me. “Let me go, Kash. Candice! Open the door!” “Calm down, you’re freaking the neighbors out.” “I don’t care! I do not want to be locked out of my apartment so I’m forced to spend time with you! You’re rude, did you know that?” I couldn’t help but laugh at her. “I’m rude? If you hate me so much, you should have never agreed to come ‘help’ me.” I nodded and gave a reassuring smile to the now-confused-looking neighbor before walking us into my apartment and releasing her. “Excuse me for trying to be nice! That’s what people do, they help people, especially when they’re new to the— Holy crap, where’s all your stuff?” She looked around at our living room, which was mostly bare save for the two boxes Mason brought. “We—” “Is this what Mason was talking about? He said I’d know it when I saw it.” Wait. What? “What are you talking about?” “Mason said you needed me for something in here. I asked him what that something was, and he said as soon as I walked into the apartment I’d see what you needed help with.” Fuck. Me. “Oh shit, Rachel. Um . . .” “When is all your furniture coming?” She began walking around the place and her eyes got bigger with each empty room she came across. “Did you guys sleep in here last night?” “Uh, yeah. Good news? Floor is actually pretty comfortable. So there’s that.” “Bad news?” “We don’t have anything coming, we need to go buy new stuff.” I took a deep breath and blew it out quickly. “And I’m starting to think that’s what Mason was sending you over here for.” She

He’s not like the other cops. What does it mean, that I thought that? That I hated him so much?” “That you’re human?” “Isn’t that really bad, though? I mean, what does that say about me?” I sighed. “Considering you just saw yourself doing it . . . made that observation all on your own, at age thirteen . . . I’d say that puts you quite a bit ahead of most of the adults I know.

No matter how much you respect them,but cops are always trained to hate normal people

I hate cops. You're either a cop or a reporter. And I hate cops and newspapermen.

She hated the powerlessness. The feeling of weakness always lurking beneath the surface, making her confidence seem phony, making her feel like a fraud. Other people in her profession went about the whir of life so nonchalantly, and their ease had always felt alien to her. It made her feel estranged from everyone else. How could people see what they saw—especially social workers and beat cops who saw everything—and not be consumed with anger all the time? How did they do it? Tara

Some leftists like to talk about “fighting the good fight.” I hate that phrase. Life is short. There are mountains to climb and philosophical texts to grapple with and sexual relationships to pursue and friends to spend time with and music to listen to and whiskey to drink. These things are all a lot more fun than marching through the streets shouting about police violence and hoping the cops don’t decide to give you an in-person demonstration of the problem. Why bother with the “good fight” if you aren’t going to fight to win?

This story is as common as dirt. Thousands of Native Americans in California, Arizona, and New Mexico could tell it. Anyone with a grandpa who was haunted by Indian boarding school, who stung his family like a dust devil when he drank. Anyone with a grandma who washed laundry until her fingernails cracked and bled, who went without eating when there weren’t enough groceries because she wanted her ten kids to have a few extra bites. Anyone with a mother who kept secrets so her kids wouldn’t find out about their father’s jailbird past. Anyone with a father who chose the violence of industrial labor over the violence of reservation life because he wanted his kids to get through private school and make better lives for themselves. So many people could tell this story, it is shocking how rarely it has been told. Too many mothers have watched their kids thrown into cop cars without protest. Too many aunties have put ice on black eyes without saying a word. Too many grandmothers have watched their grandchildren, their hope for the future, head out to a party and never come home. Too many girls have pretended nothing happened after experiencing sexual harassment, only to redirect the hate toward the innocent face staring back at them in the mirror.

Ne-gro, please. If I kill Tyrone, I’m going to prison. If a cop kills me, he’s getting put on leave. Maybe.

and I set it on the night table. I feared for Clete. I was protected by the culture of law enforcement, one that is ferociously tribal in nature. Clete was a disgraced cop, a lone soul sowing destruction and chaos everywhere he went, and hated by the Mob and NOPD. I felt his eyes on the side of my face.

But as he approached fifty, Kenny yearned to do something different. Someone told him that More Than Money—the same inheritors group Jeff Weissglass got involved with—was hiring an executive director. He landed the position and, in short order, discovered that his pregnant teens had at least one thing in common with these young heirs and heiresses: Society defined and stereotyped both groups by how much money they did or didn’t have. The foundations that funded adolescent pregnancy care assumed the girls were getting knocked up because they were poor, “which was not necessarily true,” Kenny says, whereas the inheritors were pegged as “entitled and spoiled and lazy—and there’s no basis for that.” The anti-inheritor bias proved so toxic that some of Kenny’s former colleagues shunned him after he took the new job. “They’re like, ‘What a sellout! What a cop-out! Why would you do that?’ ” he recalls. “What does it say about our culture that everyone wants to win the lottery in some way, shape, or form, and there’s a whole segment of our culture that hates people who win the big payout.” This is indeed a paradox. Oscar Mayer heir Chuck Collins gave away his $500,000 inheritance in 1986, when he was a young man. (Invested in the S&P 500, it would be worth about $14 million today.) He has since dedicated himself, through the Institute for Policy Studies, to educating the American public about inequality. His memoir, Born on Third Base, includes the following scene: Speaking to a crowd of about 350 people, he asks who among them feels rage toward the wealthiest 1 percent. Almost everyone raises a hand. He then asks, “How many of you wish you were in the wealthiest 1 percent?” They laugh, but again, almost everyone. “People are envious,” Kenny says. “And what you end up doing with envy is demeaning whoever it is that you envy, because they have what we think we deserve.” During his time at More Than Money, Kenny grew friendly with Paul Schervish, then the director of the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy, and when Schervish offered him the associate director job, Kenny jumped. He’d seen how inheritors grappled with their unearned fortunes. Now he wanted to better understand their parents. Havens was the numbers guy “and I was in charge of: ‘I’d like to know what these people are thinking, and nobody ever asks them.’ 

That’s the trouble with cops. You’re all set to hate their guts and then you meet one that goes human on you.

really hate threesomes when one of the participants is dead.