Terrell Jermaine Starr, AlterNet

Wayne Scott was away in Virginia visiting family Tuesday morning when woke up to a text from his Florida neighbor, Jamal Clark. It was a photo of his home in Pinellas Park, Fla., with racist graffiti-sprayed message: “Dumb Nigger Black Lives Matter For Target Practice.”

The outrageous shooting death of Sam Dubose by a Cincinnati cop is grabbing the headlines, but nearly two weeks after Sandra Bland died in a Texas jail after being stopped and brutally arrested for a minor traffic violation, her questionable detainment makes it clear that the criminal justice system is often as brutal to black women as it is to black men. As AlterNet recently reported, Texas State Trooper Brian Encinia overstepped his authority when he asked Bland to put out her cigarette, prolonging and escalating the stop.

Laura Browder is the latest example of how harsh America can be on working mothers. When an employer called the Houston mother of two to meet up for a job interview, she didn’t have time to line up childcare. Browder ended up taking her 2-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter with her to the interview location, a local mall, where she kept an eye on her kids from 30 feet away.

If you thought slavery was outlawed in America, you would be wrong. The 13th amendment to the Constitution states that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

Being rude is not illegal, even if some of us sometimes wish it were. Being rude to cops, including cursing them out may be ill-advised, but it is protected speech.Yet that doesn’t mean you won’t end up in bracelets anyway.