Howard University to Richard Cohen - "You're an Idiot"

via supercali-live

Incidentally, in case you don't get the reference, Richard Cohen (who, by the way, is an Idiot) wrote the quintessentially coded screed defending racist profiling. Coate's response was spot on, when he pointed out that

With that said, we should take a moment to appreciate the import of Cohen's words. They hold that neither I, nor my twelve year old son, nor any of my nephews, nor any of my male family members deserve to be judged as individuals by the state. Instead we must be seen as members of a class more inclined to criminality. It does not matter that the vast, vast majority of black men commit no violent crime at all. Cohen argues that that majority should unduly bear the burden of police invasion, because of a minority who happens to live among us.
Richard Cohen concedes that this is a violation, but it is one he believes black people, for the good of their country, must learn to live with. Effectively he is arguing for a kind of racist public safety tax. The tax may, or may not, end with a frisking. More contact with the police, and people who want to be police, necessarily means more deadly tragedy. Thus Cohen is not simply calling for my son and I to bear the brunt of "violation," he is calling for us to run a higher risk of death and serious injury at the hands of the state. Effectively he is calling for Sean Bell's fianceé, Trayvon Martin's parents, Amadou Diallo's mother, Prince Jones' daughter, the relatives of Kathryn Johnston to accept the deaths of their love ones as the price of doing business in America.

The Washington Post should be ashamed that it pays for Cohen's work.  Its not like this is anything new - heres a blast from the past (Do note that a barf-bag might be useful...)