Kindergartner Asks: Is jail a good place to be?

The New York Times has one of the saddest stories about modern racial bias I have ever read, as told by Ebbie Banks, a black 17-year-old from Palo Alto, California:

I tutored a kid. This little black kid. He looked up to me a lot. One day he asked me, “Mr. Ebbie, is jail a good place to be?” I said, “Why would you ever ask that?” He said: “My daddy’s in jail and he said he gets three meals a day. And sometimes my mom can’t make me food and I’m hungry.” I went home and I cried that night. This is a kindergartner. Teachers told him he was going to jail. I looked at him as a 5-year-old. I didn’t see a criminal. I didn’t see a drug dealer. I didn’t see a rapist. I didn’t see a gangbanger. I saw myself, when I was a little kid 10 years ago. The candidates, a lot of them, are from very privileged backgrounds and benefit from a white, male, Christian power structure. And that’s O.K. I don’t think that white people should feel guilty about their privilege. But they should feel a responsibility to acknowledge it. – Continue