You really have to see and spread around the world the video of Matthew Swaye following Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, trying to get Kelly to accept the "Bull Connor Award."
Swaye follows Kelly and Kelly's bodyguards, shouting thanks to the commissioner for letting him (Swaye) live in the city without ever being stopped and frisked by police.
Thank you, thank you, he tells Kelly, for letting white male heterosexuals know they can live in peace in New York City without being harrassed by police.
Kelly says nothing the whole time.
I suspect it was because of this encounter that police three days later (on Friday, Dec. 2) did not arrest any of the protesters in Manhattan demonstrating against the Stop and Frisk policy.
(See the Bull Connor award here.)
We reached out to Swaye, who agreed to answer in writing some questions we put to him (My questions are edited):
BR: Tell us how this happened and about yourself.
Swaye: Several young members of Stop & Frisk asked me to present Commissioner Kelly with his certificate of achievement - a redress of grievances. Although I’m bookish and educated by Quakers and Buddhists, volume is necessary because powerful men walk with armed guards.
BR: What made you sensitive about this issue of Stop and Frisk and its impact on Black and Latino males?
Swaye: I once sat on a narcotics grand jury and in a month not a single white defendant was brought before us. I’m driven too by my time as a teacher in a charter school where the business model is applied so aggressively that test scores soar and the children are data.
Bloomberg and Kelly fraudulently presented the capture of a “terrorist” on 137th street, a man the FBI says was not capable, or even very interested. Bloomberg says he commands the world’s 7th most powerful army. Ray Kelly calls the mayor the “C.E.O”. The Senate passes a bill that says we can be detained without charges, indefinitely, and in undisclosed locations.
Bull Connor was Alabama’s Commissioner of Public Safety whose attack dogs bit children, and his hoses pinned children to walls.
Commissioner Kelly’s officers are violating the constitutional and God-given rights of the citizenry through Stop & Frisks driven by his quotas. He is an efficiency expert, a non-elected official. He’s mechanically aloof; “I keep you safe from the terrorists, get off my case, get a suit, get a job.” The same old get-a-haircut nonsense they always trot out. If Ray Kelly advocates militarizing every aspect of life, that’s a public debate we’ll win.
As for the Stop & Frisk policy, white New Yorkers are - the NYPD numbers do not lie - above being put up against the wall, above being disgraced and injured in public and detained by armed officials of the State.
The world’s 7th most powerful army is training its troops at Base Brownsville and at Fort East Harlem. Basic training in Jamaica Queens and the LES.
BR: Tell us about your connection to Columbia University, where this episode occurred after Kelly had spoken to a class.
Swaye: I hold an MFA from Columbia University. (One of the biggest land-owners in the city keeps sending me alumni envelopes asking for donations!)
BR: Please describe what you saw in the reaction of Ray Kelly.
Swaye: He seemed calm, a very dignified presence, removed, not rushed on his home turf, steady and handsome, recipient of the 2011 Bull Connor Award, an expert who knows he’ll be our next mayor.
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