Kal Penn Tweets in Support of Stop and Frisk and We Become Really Sad

35 thoughts on “Kal Penn Tweets in Support of Stop and Frisk and We Become Really Sad”

1. Wow. And I thought this guy was cool. Another example of a fake celebrity.

   • What about this makes him fake? He’s stated a political position that’s not the fashionable one. He’s related it to real things that have happened in his life that are not celebrity things. (i.e. he hasn’t said “I agree with Bloomberg because Mike always invites me to the Hamptons.”) Having a gun held on you is not a celebrity thing or a rich people thing. It happens to people of all kinds. Hence the cliche: “a conservative is just a liberal who has been mugged.”

     I don’t agree with Kal Penn’s cost-benefit analysis, but I also don’t underrate how my *not* having ever been the victim of a violent crime, particularly one that involved using a weapon, might make me see the costs of the stop-and-frisk policy as outweighing any benefits. If someone holds a gun on me at 1:30am in Dupont Circle (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/reliable-source/2010/04/white_house_staffer_kalpen_mod.html), maybe I too will think it’s worthwhile to harm some people’s dignity and freedom through frisks in order to reduce the number of illegal guns on the streets.

     • You don’t need to have been the victim of a violent crime to know that Stop & Frisk is wrong. You don’t need to be a minority in this country to know that Stop & Frisk is wrong. You don’t even need to have been S&F’d to know that this is wrong, a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment right to protection against unlawful search. The stats prove overwhelmingly that the vast majority of black & Latino people who were stopped (some multiple times) were innocent of any crimes, and the vast majority of white people who were stopped (and they were stopped only about 15% of the time) ended up being up to no good. Meanwhile, there are more white people in NYC than there are black & Latinos combined. If one follows the stats, therefore, if S&F should be continued, it should actually target white people. But it doesn’t. And Bloomberg is on record as saying that FEWER white people, not more, should be S&F’d.

       This is a policy that is tantamount to racial profiling. It hasn’t had an effect on the decline in crime (proof of that is that nationwide, where S&F has NOT been implemented, violent crime rates have gone down…if S&F was as effective as its proponents claim, then violent crime outside of NYC should be much higher than it is in NYC, and yet it isn’t). Indeed, the nationwide decline in the rate of violent crime started during the DINKINS administration, and carried on through two Giuliani terms, and the three Bloomberg terms — in other words, it PREDATED S&F.

       This unconstitutional, racially-motivated profiling of innocent people has to be stopped…not “reformed”, not “monitored”, but stopped altogether. To do otherwise is immoral. Commissioner Ray Kelly, Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Kal Penn are all wrong on this issue, dead wrong.

       • I don’t understand which part of this comment purports to be arguing with mine. I said I don’t agree with Penn on the issue of stop and frisk. What I did say is that Penn is coming at the issue from a particular experience set that I don’t share, and I am capable of putting myself in another person’s shoes enough to realise that a different set of experiences might affect my views.

   • No, he’s a real celebrity. just a fake intellectual. He said it himself, he appreciates stop and frisk because he’s afraid. He’s been a victim of violent crime and he probably associates that one perpetrator with an entire group. You know, it would be like me saying all white people are evil because Jim Jones was evil = wrong and ignorant.

     Poor guy.

     • Penn himself (whom I’ve always thought was hot) clarifies and expands on what he was trying to say in his tweet, and I was glad to find out that no, he’s not really down with the stop & frisk, like folks assumed from his tweet:

       http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kal-penn/this-is-what-happens-when-i-dont-tweet-_b_3765014.html

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5. People with money just don’t give a fuck about the rest of us. Plain and simple. Get a few dollars and the poor people problems just don’t matter.

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7. It is interesting that we must take into account the feelings of the young men who have been stopped and frisked, but ignore the opinions of those who have been the victims of violent crime. That the biggest drop in homicides in urban areas is among black and Hispanics seems to be less important. If you would like to live in an area with a more hands off approach to policing, I hear Detroit and Camden, NJ are lovely this time of year.

   • false equivalency AND moving the goalposts. Penn skips past the constitutionality issue and, like Bloomberg, argues that the ends justifies the means. But, given that’s how our country has been addressing most issues of safety in the past 20 years it isn’t unusual that he would believe in stop-n-frisk

     • GIven that most police methods and social policy prior to that 20 year period of decline just aggravated social maladies, perhaps it is unwise to jettison the tried and true for more social engineering. Not in isolation, mind you – ending a foolish drug war would help.

       • That is a big-ass, bald assertion before the comma there.

         • Murders in NYC in 1990 – 2,263. One year in NYC had more death than 30 years of unrest in Northern Island, which had armed soldiers and terrorist groups.

           Murders in NYC in 2008 – 523

           http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=172183

           Murders in NYC in 2012 – 414

           http://gothamist.com/2012/12/28/nyc_hits_record_low_murder_rate_in.php

         • You’re just offering numbers. You argued that “social policy prior to that 20 year period just aggravated social engineering.” That’s the bald assertion.

         • No caps on welfare until Clinton signed Welfare reform. No “broken windows” policing until Bill Bratton came to NY. Before Bratton, fare jumpers were ignored. Once they started arresting them, and checking their rap sheets, they found that a guy jumping the subway turnstile was also likely to be wanted for something a bit more serious. Same thing with squeegee men, whom some leftists considered to be street-side entrepreneurs. Never mind that while one guy cleaned the windshield, others would gather around the car asking for money, and then cursing you out when you don’t hand over enough.

           Grafitti on subways? In the 1970s and 80s, it was “artistic expression”. Never mind it scared off ridership. Clean the graffitti, and make subways presentable for the people who are paying to ride them? What a thought. 1991 – a drunk subway conductor fell asleep, crashed the train, killing 5. After that, over union objections, the MTA implemented drug and alcohol testing.

           Are you going to demonstrate that things in NYC were swell in the 1970s and 1980s? I’ve presented plenty of instances of how policy changes brought about better outcomes – lower body counts being chief among them.

           Now, if you feel like working, perhaps you can try to demonstrate such was not the case.

         • I don’t know what you mean by “swell,” but it certainly isn’t up to me to prove it was or wasn’t. Moreover, that wasn’t your point, that NYC was horrid and now it isn’t. Your point was “social policy prior to that 20 year period just aggravated social maladies,” but failed to offer any evidence to support *that* statement. Correlation does not equal causation.

         • You didn’t disprove a single thing he posted. The fact is that stop and frisk discourages young black and hispanic men from carrying pistols on them, so that when they bump into someone in the street and they get a hard look, the worst thing that’s going to happen is a bloody nose. And since most murders in NYC are committed by young black and hispanic men, it isn’t surprising to see the policy reducing the number of murder victims.

         • You’re wrong—stop & frisk was declared illegal because N.Y. police were told that in order to fill their reducing crime quotas, they needed to start just frisking groups of black and brown people not due to looking suspicious, but simply just for the hell of it, which was tantamount to harassment. In other words, you had people being stopped & frisked merely because a policemen decided you looked suspicious, even though they had no reason to search you. How does stopping & frisking someone you haven’t even seen commit a crime stop anything at all? It dosen’t. And the police were given free reign to do this to an extent they would never be allowed to do in a lily-white neighborhood. THAT’S why it was illegal,plain and simple

         • How was life in NYC in September 1990? I remember pulling this issue out of my parents’ mailbox.

           http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19900917,00.html

8. Wow Kal Penn disappointed bro. I ALWAYS find it hypocritical when ANY minority(or person of color) is racist or has prejudice feelings against each other. It should not even exist because at the end of the day we all share one thing in common which is the most important thing and that is equality.. REAL equality, no racism. And that is the problem with a lot of minorities (even in my race) they want racism to stop against their race(like Kal Penn) but don’t care about other races. That is a huge problem and extremely selfish. At least there are minorities who are against racism for everyone (like Angry Asian Man, actor Steven Yeun, and Lakshmi for example), but there are not too many.

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10. His followers are soft balling him for his racist mindset. Why are you people following this person or any other person by-the-way?

    This Penn person hasn’t had his n*gger wake up call yet, but believe you me it’s coming.

11. The majority of all murders committed in the United States are committed by blacks. 94% of black men who are murdered are murdered by other black men. Stop and Frisk saves lives.

    Black lives, most of all. The reason you people are objecting to it is because of pride, and nothing else. Because it insults your oh so precious pride. How long does it take for an officer to frisk you to make sure you don’t have a gun or drugs? Thirty seconds? A minute? Is it really that invasive? They aren’t giving you an anal cavity search.

    Grow up and deal with it.

    • Deal with what? No one is being childish except you. Our Constitutional rights are getting violated because you think Stop and Frisk lowers the rate of crime. It’s a clear form of discrimination and fact that you don’t see that only shows your ignorance and privilege. Stop and Frisk has yet to prove lives have been saved. Ninety percent of people stopped have been innocent and only leads to more distrust towards the police.

      I was going to go about sending links to statistics that disprove some of your points and really breaking down the reality of Stop and Frisk for you to understand. But then I realized, you don’t care that our rights are being violated, that we are disproportionately discriminated against time and time again, and think that this is all about pride. Common sense and facts wouldn’t be able to pierce the thick layer of ignorance and hate you are comfortable hiding behind. Maybe when your rights have been violated in the supposed pursuit of your safety, you will understand.

      • The statistics prove that it works. The murder rate in New York went from nearly 1,500 to 400 in fifteen years. Stop and Frisk began about a decade ago and has steadily increased, just as crime is steadily decreasing, while crime is increasing in places like Chicago and Detroit, where there is no stop and frisk.

        And no, if a police officer frisks me to check that I don’t have a gun or drugs, I’m not going to “understand”, I’m not going to whine and cry about it on the internet, I’m going to GET ON WITH MY LIFE, because sixty seconds of inconvenience isn’t going to affect my daily life.

        Also, your post is a pretty good example of the typical ignorance left-wing activists display when they debate stop and frisk. OBVIOUSLY most people who are stopped aren’t carrying guns or drugs. Most people aren’t criminals. One of the points of the programs is SCARING criminals so that they don’t have the balls to brazenly walk around with guns. Hence, shootouts are much less likely because some thug leaves his gun at home and so when he bumps into someone on the street, he just slugs it out with his fists instead of drawing his gun.

        Quit crying you miserable little baby and DEAL WITH IT. God, what a pampered baby you must be to think that stop and frisk is a major violation of your rights. The only thing it violates is your arrogant pride.

        • Read my other responses—you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, and it’s clear YOU have never been stopped and frisked on a daily basis. Trust me, you wouldn’t be so cool with it if the police were searching you EVERY day even though they never caught you doing anything.

    • This is such a starkly sad example of a white person telling minorities how to feel about policies that target them when said white person knows exactly nothing of their experiences.

    • How the hell can the majority of crime in the U.S. be committed by black people when we the minority, and not even anywhere near half the population? Honestly, I see this ignorant racist BS online all the time. Funny how nobody’s advocating for white boys to be stopped and frisked since they tend to be the majority when it comes to committing school,business, and temple shootings. Got nothing to say about THAT,huh? I thought not.

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15. This guy, along with Mindy Kaling, decided to alter their names so Westerners wouldn’t screw it up and so they can get work as actors. Kal Penn is forgetting he’s brown.

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