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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsQuestlove Has Been Profiled by Police 20-30 Times
Grammy-winning musician and DJ Questlove has been stopped by police between 20 and 30 times in his lifetime, he told Democracy Now! in an interview this week touching on racial profiling and stop-and-frisk policies.
The co-founder and drummer for The Roots and music manager on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon recounted his first encounter with police, which occurred when he was a teenager growing up in Philadelphia. In 1987, he and a friend were stopped while driving back from buying the U2 album The Joshua Tree.
A cop stopped us, and he was holding a gun on us. There is nothing like the first time that a gun is held on you, he said. Were 16, mind you, like 16, 17 years old, and I just remember the protocol, I remember my father telling me, like, If youre ever in this position, youre to slowly keep your hands up. How I knew that was the protocol at that young age, I mean, its probably a sad commentary, but it was also a matter of survival.
Even today, he gets stopped all the time, he said. He was stopped for unknown reasons as recently as a few weeks ago. After finishing a regular Thursday night DJ gig in Brooklyn, police officers pulled over him and his driver, shined flashlights into the car, and asked him: Why are you sitting in the back seat like a don? The police only released him after he showed them a copy of his new memoir, Mo Meta Blues.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/08/15/2476401/questlove-has-been-profiled-by-police-20-30-times/
The co-founder and drummer for The Roots and music manager on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon recounted his first encounter with police, which occurred when he was a teenager growing up in Philadelphia. In 1987, he and a friend were stopped while driving back from buying the U2 album The Joshua Tree.
A cop stopped us, and he was holding a gun on us. There is nothing like the first time that a gun is held on you, he said. Were 16, mind you, like 16, 17 years old, and I just remember the protocol, I remember my father telling me, like, If youre ever in this position, youre to slowly keep your hands up. How I knew that was the protocol at that young age, I mean, its probably a sad commentary, but it was also a matter of survival.
Even today, he gets stopped all the time, he said. He was stopped for unknown reasons as recently as a few weeks ago. After finishing a regular Thursday night DJ gig in Brooklyn, police officers pulled over him and his driver, shined flashlights into the car, and asked him: Why are you sitting in the back seat like a don? The police only released him after he showed them a copy of his new memoir, Mo Meta Blues.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/08/15/2476401/questlove-has-been-profiled-by-police-20-30-times/
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Questlove Has Been Profiled by Police 20-30 Times (Original Post)
MrScorpio
Aug 2013
OP
KG
(28,753 posts)1. we live in a police state. a 'uniquely american' police state, but one nonetheless.
JI7
(89,276 posts)2. i think this happens more to certain people than others
KG
(28,753 posts)4. no kidding. non-white people mostly.
Downwinder
(12,869 posts)7. I have never figured out why i am so lucky.
I get IDed walking down the sidewalk or going out for a smoke. I got arrested and locked up for 72 hrs. for having Multiple Sclerosis.
kwassa
(23,340 posts)3. There he was, driving while black again.
I remember a fairly furious Forest Whitaker on some talk show, talking about how he had been pulled over, shortly after he had received an Academy Award nomination, in Los Angeles.
Cooley Hurd
(26,877 posts)5. ?uestlove is a fucking GREAT drummer!
There is no reason for anyone to approach him for anything but an autograph.
Response to MrScorpio (Original post)
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