"Stop Snitchin'" T-Shirts Chill Citizens' Urge To Cooperate With Cops

Can you define deviancy any further down?:"

As Maisha Pollard passed out fliers in downtown Denver in June asking for information about the shooting death of her brother, Javad Marshall-Fields, the shirt of one passerby shocked her.

"I could not believe it said, 'Stop snitchin,' " she said.

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The man was silent as he took a flier, walked off and tossed it away.

Pollard, local ministers and family members of Vivian Wolfe held a news conference Wednesday urging people to stop buying the T-shirts that they say shed a negative light on the slain couple and others who help law enforcement.

Marshall-Fields and his fiancée, Wolfe, both 22, were gunned down on June 20. Marshall-Fields was set to testify in the trial of Robert Ray, who has been charged in connection with the 2004 shooting death of Gregory Vann.

"They were honorable and caring," Pollard said.

The "stop snitchin' " T-shirts, which Aurora police say are anti-police and popular with younger kids, come in various designs and can be bought throughout the metro area. One T-shirt purchased Wednesday at the Underground Station in the Aurora Mall was designed with bullet holes and bull's-eyes on the front. An R.I.P. logo was placed on the back of the shirt, which sells for $24.99.

The experience of blacks in this country has impelled them, understandably enough, to create an adversarial counter-culture against the white majority.

But this counter-culture now seems almost entirely one of criminality and nihilism. There are surely ways to be authentically black, and to challenge the white power structure (such as it may be), without the glorification of crime and mayhem.

Thanks to The Warden, appropriately enough.

posted by Ace at 02:08 PM

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