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By Dean Arrindell, December 27, 2011 9:45 am

It’s pretty hard to counter the conclusion that the New York City Police Department’s Stop-and-Frisk policy is biased against blacks and Latinos. The statistics, which are the NYPD’s own numbers, indicate about 80% of the people stopped are black or Latino. Of those people who are stopped, more than 85% are completely innocent.

On, December 18, the New York Times published a story that illustrates the way Stop-And-Frisks impacts individuals. Nicholas K. Peart is a 23-year-old black college student who has been stopped and frisked four times in nine years. He was never arrested and was released every time. He describes the effect those stops have had on him.

After the third incident I worried when police cars drove by; I was afraid I would be stopped and searched or that something worse would happen. I dress better if I go downtown. I don’t hang out with friends outside my neighborhood in Harlem as much as I used to. Essentially, I incorporated into my daily life the sense that I might find myself up against a wall or on the ground with an officer’s gun at my head. For a black man in his 20s like me, it’s just a fact of life in New York.

It also changed the way Peart feels about police.

When I was young I thought cops were cool. They had a respectable and honorable job to keep people safe and fight crime. Now, I think their tactics are unfair and they abuse their authority. The police should consider the consequences of a generation of young people who want nothing to do with them — distrust, alienation and more crime.

Read the entire article here.

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By Dean Arrindell, March 19, 2011 11:13 pm

On Thursday – which was a beautiful day here in New York – I joined about two million other people on Fifth Avenue to watch the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. I’ve lived in the NYC area for nearly 15 years, but I had never attended the parade. It was a lot of fun. There was a great vibe from revelers celebrating their Irish heritage, as well as from all the bagpipers, bands, dancers, police, firefighters and others participating in the parade. There was also a cool moment where New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg stopped to pose for pictures with some nearby parade-watchers.

As much as the parade is about Irish pride, it’s also about New York. People from New York City, the Tri-State Area and around the world, from different races and nationalities, participated in and watched the parade. The event itself is a big part of New York, too. The first one was in 1762, making it the oldest civilian parade in the world. At 200,000 participants, it’s also the biggest parade in the United States.

Take a look at some video that includes Mayor Bloomberg.

Here are a few photos:

For more information about the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, check out the History Channel.

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