Abstract

On Innocence and Ignorance

The article presents information related to police brutality in the U.S. Police brutality is a very big issue in black and Latino sections of the city, where more than 80 percent of the cases of corruption and physical abuse documented by the Mollen Commission report and by Amnesty International have occurred in recent years. While it is true that many black and Latino voters are attracted to peculiar brand of melodrama precisely because it spotlights so relentlessly what the larger society seems intent upon ignoring, many, many others. And that is a troubling division indeed. How is it that a majority of New Yorkers, assessing official behavior severe enough to be cited year after year by Amnesty as violating international human rights accords, either exceptionalize it as "rogue" behavior or tolerate it on some crude cost-benefit balance sheet.