The Racial Gap (Tampa Tribune)
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – A black professor at Columbia University tells Soledad O’Brien that he instructs his 11-year-old son to fear the police.
“When you are stopped, whether you have done something or not, you cower. I want you to cower because I want you to live,” he says.
The CNN special-projects anchor says black parents from all social and economic classes told her the same thing.
“It was stunning and disturbing,” she said in an interview last week. “What is the impact of that on the psyche of these young children? What does it say about our society?
“And what’s interesting to me about that is white people do not have those conversations with their children, but every black person does,” she adds. “And the gap between those two things is where our story lies. What is happening in America? Why is that difference there?”
