Wesley Lowery

Thoughts, photos, quotes, and other tidbits I'll post here instead of on twitter

[wesleylowery]

DeRay Mckesson Won’t Be Elected Mayor of Baltimore. So Why Is He Running?

A day with the most recognizable face of the Black Lives Matter movement.

“the viability of any civil rights movement lies in its ability to move from the street to the places where governance happens“

[wesleylowery]

In fatal shootings by police, 1 in 5 officers’ names go undisclosed

Families of those killed encounter policies ranging from a wall of silence to quick disclosure.

Pamela Anderson remembers the face of the officer who shot and killed her son, James. But she doesn’t know his name. She’s not alone. WaPo has identified 210 police shootings in 2015 in which the officers involved have never been named publicly. 

[wesleylowery]

255 people have been shot and killed by police so far in 2016. Full @washingtonpost database here  https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings-2016/

[wesleylowery]

what can I do to empower young people?

Listen to them. Be generous with your time. Speak to them as adults. Teach them to dream big

[washingtonpost]

How'd you get the name Wesley? It's a great name.

I had to consulted a more informed authority on this one. Here’s what my mom had to say, via text message:“Dad and I both liked it. There was a show in the 80s, Mr. Belvader. One of the kids’ names was Wesley – we liked it!! Still do!!”So there you go, I was named partially after a character in a sitcom that I’ve never heard of. lol. -Wesley Lowery

[wesleylowery]

How I got my name

[washingtonpost]

What's your favorite Tribe joint?

Scenario 🎶Sit back relax and let yourself go🎶🎶Don’t sweat what you heard, but act like you know🎶-Wesley Lowery

[washingtonpost]

Advice for an aspiring journalist?

write every day. report every day.

every. single. day.

no matter whether the writing is for a professional newspaper or your journalism class or your personal blog (or Tumblr), and no matter if the reporting is you sitting down with your college president, or the nation’s president, or just reading a bulletin board flier and asking “what’s this?!” - writing and reporting are trades. the more you do them, the better you will be.

[wesleylowery]

“This is wrong, what’s happening,” Adam Ward said as he was killed.

“This is wrong, what’s happening,” he said. “This is not a capital case; it never was a capital case; I had never intended to do anything.”

He continued talking until he lost consciousness, his eyes shutting behind his black-rimmed glasses.

“I know there’s something else I need to say, but I don’t know,” he paused and then spoke his final words: “I feel it.”

[wesleylowery]

What is your degree? Did you go to grad school?

I went to Ohio University for undergrad, where I studied journalism. But, as much as I loved and still love my j-school, if I could go back I might major in criminal justice, or political science, or statistics -- so much of being a journalist is being able to learn a ton of things about a subject very quickly. Wish I would have given myself more of a head start at that.I haven’t gone to grad school, but I assume that I will eventually someday

[washingtonpost]

👏👏👏👏 People! 👏👏👏👏 

Tomorrow we’re live with our reporter @wesleylowery on Tumblr Answer Time! 

Wes writes about race, justice, police accountability, politics and more. You know him from his Ferguson coverage, his National Association of Black Journalists’ “Emerging Journalist of the Year” award and more. 

Submit your questions to our ask box and Wes will take them at 3 pm EST on March 23. 

👏👏👏👏👏

[washingtonpost]

👏👏👏👏 People! 👏👏👏👏 

Tomorrow we’re live with our reporter @wesleylowery on Tumblr Answer Time! 

Wes writes about race, justice, police accountability, politics and more. You know him from his Ferguson coverage, his National Association of Black Journalists’ “Emerging Journalist of the Year” award and more. 

Submit your questions to our ask box and Wes will take them at 3 pm EST on March 23. 

👏👏👏👏👏

[wesleylowery]

ask me all the questions

[washingtonpost]

Tune in at 3 p.m. for today’s Answer Time with Wesley Lowery

Wes writes about politics, police accountability, race and criminal justice. He’ll be taking your questions at 3 p.m. EST (submit one via ask box here!) and you can explore some of his recent work below. 

The 24 unarmed black men who have died in 2015

Distraught people, deadly results: Fatal shootings by on-duty police officers

54 police officers have faced criminal charges for fatally shooting someone in the past decade

[washingtonpost]

Tomorrow we’re live with our reporter @wesleylowery on Tumblr Answer Time! Submit your questions to our ask box and Wes will take them at 3 pm EST on March 23. 

[wheniwaspulledover-blog]

Visit Original Link

So I was a run-of-the-mill frat boy in college, down in South Carolina. And one night I got pulled over driving very intoxicated, in a bad neighborhood because I was totally lost and taking random turns.  So, the cop who pulled me over was a white guy. I’m white, I was wearing a polo shirt, and shorts with a little golf clubs on them, and he asked me to get out of the car so I did. He searched the car for anything he could find, he found nothing except my fake id which I had thrown under the passenger’s seat because I was 19. the fake id was so bad that he legitimately thought that it belonged to the person whose expired learners permit it was so he offered to mail it back. In the meantime several other police cars showed up, all officers were white. All of whom were very aware that I was drunk but none of which bothered to administer or even asked me to take a breathalyzer test. Then they asked me how I planned to get home. I explained that I was lost, and they told me that I had 45 minutes to find a ride home or else they would ask me to take a breathalyzer. So I started calling my friends. It was about 4′o’clock in the morning on a weeknight at the time and I had a final exam the next day for a summer class and 43 minutes later one of my friends showed up and drove me… I didn’t know how to tell them how to find me so I put one of the officers on the phone, he gladly told them how to get there. And, just in time they came and picked me up. The next day after I took my final I went and got my car and that was that.  It was probably the most white privileged moment of my entire life. 

[wesleylowery]

Share your story with us too!

[wheniwaspulledover-blog]

Visit Original Link

Hey, I’m Nick. I’m a 22-year-old white male, and the last time I was pulled over was this last St. Patrick’s Day weekend. I was at college in Troy, New York, at the time and it was probably about two in the morning. I was working on homework and decided I was going to make a run to McDonald’s. Went there, got my food, was driving back, took a left turn at an intersection and saw the lights go on. Pulled over, the cop took a while to get to the car, looked around a little bit, asked me where I was going, what I was doing, etc. etc. Took a long while – didn’t ask me why he stopped me or anything like that. Eventually he told me he stopped me because one of my tail lights was out – passenger side – and I didn’t know that, so I told him so, and he let me go.

I got home, checked out the tail light he said was out – it wasn’t. So either there was a weird problem – or what we all sort of suspected was that he was profiling that intersection because it was St. Patrick’s Day weekend near a college. But he was friendly enough for someone profiling college kids. So, yeah. That was my last experience getting pulled over by a cop.

We asked for your stories of being pulled over by police. Tell yours. 

[wesleylowery]

Share your story with us.

[wheniwaspulledover-blog]

Visit Original Link

Hi, I’m Sarah, I’m 46, I’m white and female and I look both of those things. The last time I was pulled over was probably about two years ago in the Adirondacks. I was on, I think, a state road where the speed limit dropped abruptly from 45 to 35, and I think that cops just sat there pretty much handing out tickets to people who were on vacation in the area. At the time, it just seem to me like a kind of a tax, a way that they generated revenue locally and during the summer.  

One thing that strikes me about it looking back: I was really angry because it felt very unfair. I had been going the speed limit, and then I suddenly wasn’t, and there wasn’t really any warning, I just got pulled over right away. But I wasn’t scared. 

Keep reading

[wesleylowery]

#wheniwaspulledover

[wheniwaspulledover-blog]

Visit Original Link

Several years ago, I left work on a Friday night and drove to see my sister at the beach. On a dark, back road around 10:00 at night, I was pulled over for speeding — which I was probably doing. I was dressed professionally, and stayed in my car. When the officer approached me and was writing my ticket, he said to me, ‘Why don’t you just undo one or two buttons on your blouse so I have something nice to look at while I finish up writing your ticket?’

I was shocked and didn’t know how to react. I tried to smile demurely, but not invitingly and said ‘Oh, I think just the ticket for tonight, but thanks.’ Fortunately, he did not press. But now, every time someone says ‘Just do whatever the office tells you to do, just comply in the moment and litigate it later,’ I remember that moment.

I remember how terrified I was, how infuriated I was, how confused and in disbelief I was. I feel the adrenaline flooding my body again. If I had complied, would he have taken that as an invitation? Should I have driven away? If he had attacked me, would I have survived that encounter?

That incident made it so clear to me that just like with rape, it is not about what the victim is or isn’t doing. It is about power and control of the perpetrator — the rapist or the officer — who is abusing his authority, or her authority. We have to stop looking at what the victims are doing and blaming them, and look at how the officers are conducting themselves and hold them accountable.  

Tell us about a time you were pulled over.