The Adventures in Policing Thread Part II

Did you see this part?

Albuquerque has faced a rash of police shootings that has garnered national attention. The 37 police shootings that have rocked the small city since 2010 engendered a 10-hour protest months before events unfolded in Ferguson, Missouri. The cops involved in many of these shootings were hardly punished at all, with officers in some cases merely suspended for three days. And in the wake of all of this, a scathing U.S. Department of Justice report found rampant constitutional violations in police use of force.
The city is now in the final stages of entering into an agreement with the Justice Department to improve some of its police practices. And part of what will become a court-enforceable agreement if approved by a judge is a mandate that “charges be filed against a shooting officer if they are warranted,” according to KRQE’s Jeff Proctor.​

 

Oh come now, that's much less relevant than getting in a little character smear against the DA filing the charges....

 

The ironman I can tolerate different opinions and not be offended shtick. Most commonly thrown out by cis white males who don't know what's like to be oppressed.

This ain't no ordinary subject for that matter. This is about the oppression of a group of people. People like me. There ain't no two sides to oppression. Either you're one of those working to end it on one side, or the other side where you like being "neutral" to oppression +those that perpetrate societal and institutional racism on a consistent basis.

 

Your persistence is admirable!

I come here mainly to discuss what it might take to address a given problem, and like you, the problems I want to see addressed (racism and racial disparity and all its results, in all their forms) are close to home. I've been known to address deliberate disagreement on whether there IS a problem, but I do it only once or twice per poster. I never really saw the reason for bothering beyond that, and nothing I've seen over the years has convinced me otherwise. Seems counterproductive to continue to engage here in this forum or any other. I join with my friends, my enemies will join with theirs and we'll all keep it moving forward. No one should be soiling their diapers about that, I'd think.

 

Thanks.

You never know sometimes.

One of my dearest black HS track teammates who runs at University of Houston is one of those types to spew out the black on black crime nonsense, and sadly didn't understand how oppression works here. However, through a couple snippets from me and others on Twitter we've been able to get him to slowly but surely unlearn the shit he was taught. He's still very, very far from me in terms of consciousness, and I'll admit in his case that he seems a bit more capable than other former teammates of improving his critical thinking and consciousness. But that one moment goes to show while it can reopen wounds and drain you, you must have that conversation with people close around you so they can make the preliminary steps to free themselves from the chains of unconsciousness.

 

Well, your former teammate has a better chance for two reasons: he's young, and he's Black. If UH track isn't a troo contenda on the national level, he'll have his Niemoller moment before he has his sheepskin, I can almost promise you that.

Posters like Worms and Jake and Beerking and Stanger and The Guardian are grown and White. If they weren't exposed early on to cultures and ideas other than those of their immediate upbringing, your efforts are gonna bounce off them like bottle rockets off a Panzer. I tend to look to more centrist posters like Belgian Guy and Nutter for meaningful conversation, and to Demosthenes and Phedre44 and TJ for enlightenment on several issues.

 

Your ignoring of black on black crime seems strange for somebody with an avatar "black lives matter"

So for the record, do you believe those issues you listed above have no affect on the quality of life or murder rate in the black community?

Should the majority/government/whatever do anything to address those issues (other than ending racism) or even care?

By making even the mention of black on black crime verboten, you are basically saying not to do anything about the slaughter of blacks by other blacks in Africa, because doing so would be acknowledging black on black crime. We, and by we I mean our government, ignored as best we could the 700,000 Rwandans hacked to death, the civil war in the Congo, and countless other atrocities in Africa. Personally I thought Clinton should have sent in ground troops and put an end to the Rwanda slaughter almost immediately. In your mind, would that have been good thing or just another act of colonialism/racism as we would have probably killed a few Rwandans in the process? Are you open to the possibility that black on black crime may occasionally need to be acknowledged in order to save black lives? Was Michael Brown's life worth more that those of 700,000 Rwandans, or the thousands of Nigerians being killed by Boko Haram? Should the West do anything about the various slaughters in Africa? And for the record I fully acknowledge that the Europeans really ********ed up Africa and the affects are still being felt today and will be felt for a long time to come, but we must address the situation as it unfortunately is today.

 

all than damn blue meth.

 

Well you didn't ask me, but I'm gonna jump in here anyway-- if "ending racism" were a toggle rather than more of a slow clean up, toggling it would solve those "issues" just fine.

Those "issues" are a symptom of the real disease, not a disease in and of themselves; which is why they are irrelevant to any meaningful discussion.

 

I don't think anyone that posts here doesn't think racism is an issue. My disagreements with you come from discussing individual incidents, not racism as a whole.

As I have stated previously, I have friends that don't look like me and I have seen them treated differently. I understand it's an issue that needs to be discussed. What I don't believe is that regardless of known facts you can just scream racism at every incident.

For you to discount anything a white poster may say on the issue based on what you think you know about them is unfortunate.

 

Oh look, another clueless white person unaware of the minimal difference between the rates of BOB crime and WOW Crime. And some diarrhea at the mouth about sub-Saharan Africa( A place that he will likely never give a damn about anyway.) to try to silence me when I complain about my oppression in my own country.

 

Of course not. You wouldn't know what racism is like* even if it popped you in the jaw with a two piece combo and a biscuit.

*Being called cracker,honkey, mayonnaise, snow white,etc is not racism. It's prejudice.

It's not that hard to just zip your lips and listen to what marginalized people go through. It' really not.

 

Here's where it becomes difficult. You seem to only desire a one-way conversation when it suits you. For all stanger's (several) faults, he's got a bit of a point here. Shutting off debate and telling people that what they have to say is ipso facto worthless merely because you're black and they're not is not productive in any way. It's certainly not softening any positions, and it is putting focus on narrow areas of disagreement rather than trying to find out where there might be some agreement.

 

When did I say I know what racism is like?

I wouldn't be posting in this thread if I didn't want to learn more about the experiences POC go through. I just don't think every instance is due to racism.

 

The direction this thread is going right now towards treatment of POC by cops. Isn't it the best thing for the interest of fixing the problem is to listen to people who are most vulnerable to it?

It's good and all that you're aware of police injustice , but you lack the emotional component to it, because you don't have to fear for your humanity.

Am I really supposed to be civil about it around here? If that area of disagreement is over whether not LEO's are capable as an institution of perpetrating racism, that ain't exactly a narrow area of disagreement.

Never said you know.
But see, as a white person who benefits from oppression, whether you're a perpetrator or not, you cannot determine what is racist and what is not for an oppressed person. It's insensitive as shit. And if you want to truly know empathize with what black people go through, you have to venture out your comfort zone and have a face to face conversation with multiple marginalized members. Not just having keyboard wrestling matches with me, Auria and others.

 

Damn, Dynamo, I can't rep every post you leave, but the "record scratch"... I'm dying over here with laughter...

 

Update on the whole "Cleveland police are seriously awful and deserve to be devoured slowly by pythons" thing.

Money quote:

They're claiming racial discrimination. Seriously.

 

The poster you're replying to here is someone I've had several conversations with (and Shake) about his bent toward libertarianism. I've said repeatedly that the sort of governmental "overstep" libertarians decry is exactly what prevents some Whites from exercising their freedoms to discriminate against me. I've tried to explain that it doesn't really matter if that club/school/church/swimming pool is private or not- the idea that members ought to be allowed to discriminate is foul. The idea that the market would create problems for discriminators is naive, IMO, and in any case, it ought not come to that. I've tried to point out that if government "overstep" is necessary to prevent more Jim Crow-esque behavior than we already have, then it's a good thing, period. Whatever it takes to limit the power of those who'd discriminate against POCs. We didn't seem to be able to agree on that, so I'm left to have civil discussions with someone who'd allow racists to use their power against me because private property. Or no discussion at all. I choose the latter most of the time. Now, Timon's never been rude or profane AFAIK, but he may as well be both- there are no points given for politeness when the message itself is profane. He doesn't have to be a bigot himself to be outside the realm of people whose discussion company I value. He simply needs to be an enabler of bigotry because freedomz.

Not having these discussions isn't a matter of anger. It's just not something I'm interested in.

You don't read these posts as thoroughly as I do.

When someone types "every instance", they're setting you up to make themselves look reasonable. Posts like that don't merit a response, because they imply that I haven't done the thoughtwork and concluded what is and what isn't. If I had a dollar for everything I DIDN'T bring up in this forum, I'd have a lot of dollars. The next step is usually to find someone of color whose position is closer to the one that least challenges their way of being in the world and present it to you as evidence that you're somehow wrong. Ceezmad plays that role here quite a bit, without being asked. You may have time for that, but I do not. The next step is often to imply that I don't tolerate opposing viewpoints. I find that amusing, because it's not my call to tolerate them or not. They're here already. My choice not to engage bigoted viewpoints or bigot enabling posters isn't intolerance- it's (if they really thought about it) allowing them to practice their bigotry and/or bigot enabling with one fewer good guy to get in their way.

How many have I gotten right so far?

 

The police never consider the behavior of the police to be the issue. The issue is always the reactions to the behavior of police.

 

I'm going to resist getting into a protracted discussion here because I disagree with some of the removed stuff (I'm sure you're shocked), but agree with some, too (especially where I feel that 'nutter has gotten it a bit wrong).

But what I REALLY wanted to say is that not even I believe the quoted portion.

I get pretty fired up from time to time.

 

So, why should any citizen be expected to tolerate this behavior from an employee of a public taxing body?
Id go from placid pedestrian to wanting to cap a bitch with a brick in half a second. She is a danger to her co workers as well.

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/...ng-pepper-sprayed-at-MLK-rally-290149021.html

Crazy cop: Fired and tried for as many charges as imagination can creat.
Her supervisor: unemployed
Other cops: One year unpaid suspension and must reapply for academy.

 

Tell me, what is my comfort zone I have to venture out of? You seem to think you know me pretty well, so tell me how to do what you think I need to do.

 

Looks as though she was actually trying to spray the guy who was trying to take her picture with his cell phone, and just wasn't very good with the spray-- or maybe decided to go for any cell phone she could get?

(None of which is intended as a justification or excuse, BTW.)