5 Things Every Brooklyn Schoolchild Should Learn
Why So Many People In New York Are In Prison
It’s never too early to learn about the Rockefeller Drug Laws! That’s what I’ve always known I’d want to teach my children as early as possible. This kind of goes hand-in-hand with teaching children about stop-and-frisk and about how, as much as we want to think of the police as being a force for good and the court system as being a place where justice occurs, this isn’t necessarily the case. And, in fact, the notion that all children—regardless of race or socio-economic class—should be taught that all police officers are automatically trustworthy is kind of bullshit. After all, my experience as a young white teenage girl with regard to the police was obviously vastly different than if I had been a different gender or race. Teach kids about how one law wound up being responsible for the long-term imprisonment of thousands of minorities and see what they take away from it.