Questlove on Being Stopped By Police: "It's Like Breathing"

It's a shame we have to view it that way.

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"I guess to some people I might look suspicious, a person of my stature, my physical appearance in a high-end silver car, but that's how I get around the city."

These are Questlove's words on the NYPD's stop-and-frisk initiative, which he also called "unconstitutional" at Zeigfeld Theater for a screening of the fourth season of HBO's Boardwalk Empire last night. He told the Daily Intelligencer that while he hadn't been stopped and humiliated in the traditional sense, he was stopped for no discernible reason while driving on three occasions over the past year. 

"I don't tweet about it because it happens so much that it's just regular to me. It's like breathing," he added.  "I shouldn't accept it lying down, but sometimes it's just, you just got to shrug it off."

His "saving grace" in many of these situations (for people who aren't familiar with the Roots catalogue or don't watch Late Night with Jimmy Fallon) is his book, which he keeps in his vehicle. "Usually—I won't say it's a saving grace—but what's made it go smoother is thank God there's a copy of my book in the back of the car. I shouldn't have to do that, but it'll take the heat off me." 

In a world where young black men can get pulled over twice within a 90-minute period in the same neighborhood for no good reason, or worse, shot and killed for looking suspicious, it's a shame that we have to celebrate these small victories. This is the world that we live in.

[via Daily Intelligencer]

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