he legend of Mayer Hawthorne tells of him recording the demos that became A Strange Arrangement as a bit of a joke. He was Andrew Cohen and DJ Haircut then, and he had neither done much singing before, nor intended to shop the demos around to labels at all.

On November 9, 2008, the Chinese Staff and Workers Association held a meeting in anticipation of the final City Council hearing on the East Village/Lower East Side rezoning plan. Organizer Wah Lee stood before a tightly squeezed audience of workers affiliated with the organization and members of New York’s Chinese-language press.

It is a strange moment in New York City’s history. While media outlets across the nation ruminate about a post-racial America, it seems abundantly clear that racial profiling by the NYPD continues to occur on a regular basis.