USA, Black Lives Lost in Police Actions

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: olddude
Date: 02 Dec 14 - 12:38 PM

Don't rat me out to my Mrs about the cig or else

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 02 Dec 14 - 04:44 PM

The shooting of Levar Jones was almost identical in nature.

The cop claims he approached him about a seat belt volation. The dash cam shows him coming up to Jones, who had just exited his vehicle, calling on him to produce his driving licence.

When Jones turned to the car to get it, the cop screamed "Get out of the car" and immediately fired three shots.

Jones came out of the car with a wallet in both hands and held it up to show the ID, and the cop fired again.

Off camera he could be heard yelling at the wounded Jones to turn over and put his hands behind his back. Then he came back into view picked up the wallet which Jones had dropped, examined it and threw it into the car. At no time did I hear him call for medical assistance.

He was quite correctly fired and prosecuted, Grand Jury and Supreme Court please note and do likewise.

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: GUEST,sawzaw
Date: 02 Dec 14 - 06:28 PM

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/04/rochester-ny-officer-killed/15086621/

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Dec 14 - 07:42 PM

Police departments across the US are being militarized.

Blacks are being urged to violently protest court decisions.

Blacks are being set up for suppression and round up. By other blacks.

Fascism knows no skin color.

Don't fall for the Obama reverse racism sucker punch.

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: wysiwyg
Date: 02 Dec 14 - 08:06 PM

What nice posts some of you wrote!

Don't fall for trolls in this thread. Please. Just assume they're being deleted.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Dec 14 - 08:36 PM

Indeed.

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: Greg F.
Date: 03 Dec 14 - 04:46 PM

A grand jury today cleared a white New York City police officer Wednesday in the videotaped chokehold death of an unarmed black man, Eric Garner, who had been stopped on suspicion of selling loose, untaxed cigarettes.

Another Lynching

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: olddude
Date: 03 Dec 14 - 05:53 PM

Oh I guess we have a new law its ok to kill for selling tax free injun cigs. Maybe the 2nd admendment isn't so bad after all about tyranny and such and rights to self defense against such.. Jefferson was right.
Ya know that vast majority of cops are really good people but the bad ones are really really bad

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: Greg F.
Date: 03 Dec 14 - 06:15 PM

"Ya know that vast majority of cops are really good people"

I do indeed, Dan, but this is getting ridiculous. Starting to remind me of the 1890-1930 period down south when Black folks were regularly lynched and grand juries determined they died "at the hands of persons unknown" and even when the persons WERE known and arrested, juries refused to convict them.

"Post-Racial Country" my ass.

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: olddude
Date: 03 Dec 14 - 06:44 PM

I just watched the video the man Did not resist arrest his hands were up and the cop put a death lock on him crushing his wind pipe. And the grand jury throws it out. JESUS GOD
Put that cop in a ring with me give me ten minutes alone. For fuck sake what have we become

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: olddude
Date: 03 Dec 14 - 06:57 PM

That man was murdered plain and simple that hold is not a restraint it is designed to kill. The mma fighter's use a variation like in judo that shuts off the blood stream. It will put you unconscious but that death lock can and will kill as we seen. He was murdered by the cops who never once ordered him down. Only when they grabbed him did he move and never once fought back or hit an officer he was murdered period

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: Greg F.
Date: 03 Dec 14 - 06:58 PM

I'm afraid it's not a case of what we've BECOME, Dan, but rather a case of what we've always BEEN, and have pretended not to be.

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: olddude
Date: 03 Dec 14 - 06:58 PM

Over a fucking pack of cigs

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: olddude
Date: 03 Dec 14 - 10:42 PM

Greg I can't believe everyone is not outraged over that video. I am a trained ex agent. I know whatiI am talking about and they murdered that big guy for no reason

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: olddude
Date: 03 Dec 14 - 10:42 PM

Greg I can't believe everyone is not outraged over that video. I am a trained ex agent. I know whatiI am talking about and they murdered that big guy for no reason

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: wysiwyg
Date: 03 Dec 14 - 11:54 PM

[Phoenix, AZ] Rumain Brisbon, father of four and resident of Phoenix, AZ was killed by an unnamed Phoenix Police Officer on Tuesday December 2, 2014.

~S~

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: olddude
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 12:04 AM

Cnn has wide spread protesting in nyc thank god. Breaks my heart. All they had to do was give him a summons. He died for a small fine. My god

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: olddude
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 12:17 AM

Youccould hear him saying you guys have to stop me every time you see me. Why I get sick of it. Who would not. I can understand that. Every time I go to the airport I get searched I got pissed one day and took my shirt off to show the surgery scars and metal. When you go outside and are treated like dirt after a while you do get pissed. Even so he never resisted and died for a simple summary offence because he was murdered. Just heard some police captain say the officers did nothing wrong. That tells me it will continue and their dept will continue to hire racist thugs

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: olddude
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 12:28 AM

Protect and serve who just us light skin people I guess. Other fellow Americans get murdered

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: wysiwyg
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 07:07 AM

Mr. Akai Gurley, November 2014, NY,NY., age 28, totally innocent'.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/22/akai-gurley-nypd_n_6205492.html

~S~

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: Greg F.
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 08:59 AM

NYC = Mississippi North??

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: Greg F.
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 09:20 AM

50 Years Ago

Pay particular attention to the last verse.

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: Greg F.
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 01:03 PM

Looks like good old-style Southern lynching may be Making A Comeback

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: olddude
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 01:45 PM

They could not just write him a ticket no had to knock him down and choke him against their dept policy not to arrest people for trival offences yet they then say the cops were justified even when we all see the video. I been so mad I am spitting nails

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: GUEST,sawzaw
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 01:48 PM


A police officer was cleared of wrongdoing on Friday by a grand jury who said he was defending himself when he shot and killed unarmed 18-year-old freshman Gil Collar

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: olddude
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 02:29 PM

Last year when I got into a confrontation with the creep that was filming my daughter breast feeding I put him down with a wrist lock. There was no reason for a choke hold especially that one. Murdered

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 08:28 PM

OK, let's take this on a level. As certain police are obviously doing something even a certifiable cretin would have doubts about, and yet nothing is being done about it, and this has been going on for years, WHY does the US put up with it. Yes, I know, it's the same circles and "We are the State and you do not question Us" logic that we saw in the gun law abuse. Power which corrupts and has reached the point where the checks and controls, which were supposed to operate to stop it, don't, because they've either started to idenitfy with the systems they are supposed to monitor with prudent caution through over-familiarity or because they've been actively subverted, or at the very least they've been allowed to fall into disuse because they never found anything because they were never expected or allowed to find anything. It is equally obvious they cannot actively monito everything all the time, but when nothing happens, then it's time to replace the Watchers, the quis custodiet over the ipsos custodies.
The FBI is charged with prosecuting the Civl Rights Act 1964 as it's fifth Priority, and public Corruption as its fourth. Its first, counter-terrorism, is farmed out to Homeland Security, its second, counterintelligence, and third, cyberwarfare, to a number of other Agencies, so one might begin to wonder what it is actually doing - and why it has been silent in these questions.

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 10:48 PM

The Obama administration's Justice Department says that it's OK to act out against jury verdicts. Meanwhile the administration is militarizing police departments. Deadly conflict is inevitable.

Another Obama legacy.

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: wysiwyg
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 11:01 PM

Thanks, Komesia Umstead.
From NAACP Legal Defense Fund:

2014: Tamir Rice (Cleveland, OH)
2014: Akai Gurley (Brooklyn, NY)
2014: Victor White III (Iberia Parish, LA)
2014: Dante Parker (San Bernardino County, CA)
2014: Kaijeme Powell (St. Louis, MO)
2014: Ezell Ford (Los Angeles, CA)
2014: Michael Brown (Ferguson, MO)
2014: McKenzie Cochran (Southfield, MI)
2014: Tyree Woodson (Baltimore, MD)
2014: John Crawford III (Beavercreek, OH)
2014: Eric Garner (New York, NY)
2014: Yvette Smith (Bastrop, TX)
2014: Jordan Baker (Houston, TX)
2013: Kayla Moore (Berkeley, CA)
2013: Barrington Williams (New York, NY)
2013: Andy Lopez (Santa Rosa, CA)
2013: Carlos Alcis (New York, NY)
2013: Deion Fludd (New York, NY)
2013: Jonathan Ferrell (Bradfield Farms, NC)
2013: Kimani Gray (New York, NY)
2013: Kyam Livingstone (New York, NY)
2013: Larry Eugene Jackson, Jr. (Austin, TX)
2013: Miriam Carey (Washington, DC)
2012: Chavis Carter (Jonesboro, AR)
2012: Dante Price (Dayton, OH)
2012: Duane Brown (New York, NY)
2012: Ervin Jefferson (Atlanta, GA)
2012: Jersey Green (Aurora, IL)
2012: Johnnnie Kamahi Warren (Dothan, AL)
2012: Justin Slipp (New Orleans, LA)
2012: Kendrec McDade (Pasadena, CA)
2012: Malissa Williams (Cleveland, OH)
2012: Nehemiah Dillard (Gainesville, FL)
2012: Ramarley Graham (New York, NY)
2012: Raymond Allen (Galveston, TX)
2012: Rekia Boyd (Chicago, IL)
2012: Reynaldo Cuevas (New York, NY)
2012: Robert Dumas Jr (Cleveland, OH)
2012: Sgt. Manuel Loggins Jr (Orange County, CA)
2012: Shantel Davis (New York, NY)
2012: Sharmel Edwards (Las Vegas, NV)
2012: Shereese Francis (New York, NY)
2012: Tamon Robinson (New York, NY)
2012: Timothy Russell (Cleveland, OH)
2012: Wendell Allen (New Orleans, LA)
2011: Alonzo Ashley (Denver, CO)
2011: Jimmell Cannon (Chicago, IL)
2011: Kenneth Chamberlain (White Plains, NY)
2011: Kenneth Harding (San Francisco, CA)
2011: Raheim Brown (Oakland, CA)
2011: Reginald Doucet (Los Angeles, CA)
2010: Aaron Campbell (Portland, OR)
2010: Aiyana Jones (Detroit, MI)
2010: Danroy Henry (Thornwood, NY)
2010: Derrick Jones (Oakland, CA)
2010: Steven Eugene Washington (Los Angeles, CA)
2009: Kiwane Carrington (Champaign, IL)
2009: Oscar Grant (Oakland, CA)
2009: Shem Walker (New York, NY)
2009: Victor Steen (Pensacola, FL)
2008: Tarika Wilson (Lima, OH)
2007: DeAunta Terrel Farrow (West Memphis, AR)
2006: Sean Bell (New York, NY)
2005: Henry Glover (New Orleans, LA)
2005: James Brisette (New Orleans, LA)
2005: Ronald Madison (New Orleans, LA)
2004: Timothy Stansbury (New York, NY)
2003: Alberta Spruill (New York, NY)
2003: Orlando Barlow (Las Vegas, NV)
2003: Ousmane Zongo (New York, NY)
2001: Timothy Thomas (Cincinnati, OH)
2000: Earl Murray (Dellwood, MO)
2000: Malcolm Ferguson (New York, NY)
2000: Patrick Dorismond (New York, NY)
2000: Prince Jones (Fairfax County, VA)
2000: Ronald Beasley (Dellwood, MO)
1999: Amadou Diallo (New York, NY)

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 09:24 AM

I make that 77!

One victim every 4.7 days.

And SoreJaw thinks that posting two cases with white victims balances the books.

Shows what he thinks of the value of black lives. About the same as the police and the Grand Jury, apparently!

Are all US law enforcement drawn from the Deep South Ku Klux Klan community? It sure looks that way!

We watched on TV last night as a peaceful demonstration in the streets, with people walking slowly, hands in the air, chanting "We're Black! Don't Shoot!", was met by several lines of heavily armed police in full riot gear!

Says it all really! The police default position is overwhelming force in all situations involving black protesters.

Their motto should be "Subdue, or Kill!"

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: GUEST,sawzaw
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 10:08 AM

Line of Duty Deaths 2014: 107
Assault: 2
Automobile accident: 24
Drowned: 1
Fire: 1
Gunfire: 43
Gunfire (Accidental): 2
Heart attack: 15
Motorcycle accident: 3
Struck by vehicle: 3
Vehicle pursuit: 3
Vehicular assault: 10

By State
Alabama: 4
Alaska: 2
Arizona: 2
Arkansas: 1
California: 14
Colorado: 1
Florida: 5
Georgia: 4
Illinois: 1
Indiana: 4
Kansas: 1
Kentucky: 1
Louisiana: 1
Massachusetts: 1
Michigan: 1
Minnesota: 1
Mississippi: 1
Missouri: 2
Montana: 1
Nebraska: 2
Nevada: 2
New Hampshire: 1
New Jersey: 3
New Mexico: 1
New York: 5
North Carolina: 2
Ohio: 1
Oklahoma: 2
Pennsylvania: 3
Puerto Rico: 5
South Carolina: 3
Tennessee: 5
Texas: 11
Tribal Police: 2
U.S. Government: 6
Utah: 1
Virginia: 3
Wisconsin: 1

Male: 103
Female: 4

Average age: 41
Average tour of duty: 12 years, 10 months

More here

Cameron Tillman:
On the evening of September 21 2014, police were called to check on reports of trespassers with weapons going into an abandoned home in Terrebonne, Louisiana. Cameron Tillman, a 14-year-old boy was shot dead on the scene by a sheriff's deputy. His brother, who was there, said he was shot opening the door and was unarmed, but the police said he was armed and that a gun was recovered near his body. It was later reported that the weapon was a BB gun that appeared to be a .45-caliber pistol.

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 10:15 AM

So friggin' what?

Does that justify killing one unarmed black person every five days?

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 10:26 AM

Incidentally SoreJaw, in one of the cases you cited, the cop shot a white teenager who was both unarmed and bloody naked.

Did he think the kid might have a .44 Magnum concealed up his arse?

When the cops shoot first, shoot without thinking, and shoot to kill, as well as shooting black people for little more than being BLACK and being THERE, I should have thought you would be at least a little bit aware that something is wrong with the cops, not their victims.

Perhaps I'm expecting too much in the way of rational thought on your part?

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 10:43 AM

Are you seriously including the 15 heart attacks, 2 accidental shootings, the 3 M/cycle and 24 Auto accidents and one each, fire and drowning, in your feeble defense of shooting unarmed black people?

46 deaths out of 107 not due to enemy action in any form.

Only 43 reported deliberate gun deaths, without any clue as to circumstances.

So are you trying to claim that 15 black people caused those heart attacks, presumably by coming up behind a cop and yelling BOO?

Don't get me wrong! I have sympathy for every one of those 107 cops and for their friends and families.

I have no sympathy or respect for an arsehole who tries to use their deaths to justify a bunch of gung ho killers in uniform, setting out to even the score by killing black people indiscriminately.

They and you disgrace the memory of those dead policemen.

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: Greg F.
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 11:36 AM

SoreJaw is, and always has been, brain-damaged white trash. Ignore it.

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: wysiwyg
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 01:34 PM

"Criminal justice experts note that, while the federal government and national research groups keep scads of data and statistics— on topics ranging from how many people were victims of unprovoked shark attacks (53 in 2013) to the number of hogs and pigs living on farms in the U.S. (upwards of 64,000,000 according to 2010 numbers) — there is no reliable national data on how many people are shot by police officers each year....

...Law enforcement watchdog groups and think tanks say that the lack of comprehensive data on police shootings hampers the ability of departments to develop best practices and cut down on unnecessary shootings."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/09/08/how-many-police-shootings-a-year-no-one-knows/

~S~

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: wysiwyg
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 01:39 PM

Wall Street Journal analysis finds that HUNDREDS of homicides by law enforcement agencies in the U.S. between 2007 and 2012 are not included in FBI records, WSJ's Rob Barry reports... and (duh!), what's the racial breakdown, one wonders?!?!?!

OK. Numbers. Assume that "hundreds" means "200", at a minimum...
divided by the max of 6t years this report covers
(depending on precise start and end dates).
200/6 = an average of AT LEAST 33 lives LOST per YEAR....
"The reports to the FBI are part of its uniform crime reporting program. Local law-enforcement agencies aren't required to participate."

http://m.wsj.com/articles/hundreds-of-police-killings-are-uncounted-in-federal-statistics-1417577504?mobile=y&mod=djemalertNEWS

~S~

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 08:31 PM

The statistics are immaterial. Each victim is unique to their family, and if there is even one, then that is one too many. We rely on the police to be the first level of justice, and if they are not just, then there is no justice. The first problem they have is that they have been sold the line that the Law is just, and that's obviously not true: the Law needs to be applied with sound judgement, and it doesn't always happen. Taking the Law into their own hands because of a minor disagreement shortcircuits the provisions built into the Law to ensure common sense is brought to bear at the earliest opportunity, and that then results in what is happening. It means the fine sense of injustice I discussed above, when it takes a while for true justice to be found (which is the flip side of the old saw that justice delayed is justice denied), becomes a course sense of injustice when such obvious abuse as has happened - both in the US and in the UK, let me hasten to add, lest anyone think I am letting the UK police off the hook - is allowed to pass uncorrected.
Reducing injustic to a game of statistics is an inhummanly cruel twist of the knife, dismissing the value of a human life as irrelevent, a mere cipher. It is not whether you can quantify it, it's whether you should quantify it. It's irresponsible, and denies the blame for allowing it.

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: wysiwyg
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 10:52 PM

Rahere, I completely disagree because to me, each name is the beginning of a search to find out what happened and what that individual's life was about as separate from the remaking of their legacy. To me this is the required NAMING of people who are so often treated as nameless. It's a way of NOT benefiting from the displaying of their bodies, by looking past the smeared and blamed image the cops in most cases gave them.

I understand your point, Rahere, but it misses my heart. It misses also the reality that friends who are people of color expect me to take that journey and are waiting for what I wll learn on it. And not a one of them sees it your way. I'll be happy to check with them if you don't mind my quoting your post.

Would you have objected in the same way to the memorialization of lives lost by shipwreck? I think (I hope) you would stand by respectfully while name after name tolled, not interrupt to correct the one memorializing.

~S~

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: wysiwyg
Date: 06 Dec 14 - 07:24 PM

Regarding statistics and leaving people unnamed-- Historically, slavers would throw Black enslaved human beings overboard sometimes.

Individually, they might do this as a "quarantine" strategy if people were ill or inciting rebellion, or corporately-- to the whole "cargo" of hundreds of captives-- to avoid being caught with slaves on board after the abominable trade was outlawed. Or to collect on the insurance. Picture: ABOUT 1/4 WAY DOWN PAGE (I do not endorse the article itself)

To fail to note the stats and the names is a similar modern-times sinking of people into nameless martyrdom.

To fail to recognize the power of collecting and distributing the data is to fail to see how change actually happens-- one has to know the problem in order to solve it!

~Susan

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 06 Dec 14 - 07:43 PM

WYSIWYG, i think you misunderstand me: I started out saying that each of those harmed in this failure of justice is an individual and must be treated as such, which is your point. We must not treat them as part of a class, but as individuals, with their successes and failures. The failures of the justice systems are not something which can be addressed by yet another program, that has happened and if it still fails, anything more is putting a sticking plaster on a suppurating wound, more radical measures are needed, and that starts with the Police dealing with citizens as people. Not as minorities, not as perps or crims (not even gracing them with a presumption of innocence or even the real word, because the real word condemns them for failing to do so), nor even as us-and-them, but as individuals. The real failing is that we allow the headline of the meme being "Another black man shot by cop" rather than "Another man shot by a racist cop". It's not the colour which matters, but the racism, and collecting your data according to the wrong criterion lets those really responsible off the hook.
I think, therefore, that what you may have fallen victim to is reflecting your own weaknesses in your reading of what I posted.

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: wysiwyg
Date: 06 Dec 14 - 10:02 PM

Nope.

The reality is and has been that Black folks (who mostly these days are choosing to sekf identify as such) are disproportionately victimized-- fatally-- in the US system which could only exist in its present form as a result of the slave labor this country was founded upon... and the genocide of much of that reproductive labor pool's skns and daughters once their labor had to be bought, not stolen.

In THAT sense, being "colorblind" only perpetuates that system, by covering it up.

~S~

Subject: any mod help request
From: wysiwyg
Date: 06 Dec 14 - 10:05 PM

Typos in my post just previous...

Should be

self
sons

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: wysiwyg
Date: 06 Dec 14 - 10:32 PM

Given the realities Black folks face, it would be great if more white folks could start to hear how it really feels most if not all of the time. Here is some input from them as distilled by Tim Wise in an extended simile. Wise can be hard to hear in person-- he yells a lot because he's so fed up with Racism-- but IMO this may be his best writing, for degoofing privileged white denial.

"Can we just put aside all we think we know about black communities (most of which could fit in a thimble, truth be told) and imagine what it must feel like to walk through life as the embodiment of other people's fear, as a monster that haunts their dreams the way Freddie Kreuger does in the movies? To be the physical representation of what marks a neighborhood as bad, a school as bad, not because of anything you have actually done, but simply because of the color of your skin? Surely that is not an inconsequential weight to bear. To go through life, every day, having to think about how to behave so as not to scare white people, or so as not to trigger our contempt---thinking about how to dress, and how to walk and how to talk and how to respond to a cop (not because you're wanting to be polite, but because you'd like to see your mother again)---iswork; and it's harder than any job that any white person has ever had in this country. To be seen as a font of cultural contagion is tantamount to being a modern day leper."

http://m.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/24/1345457/-Repetitive-Motion-Disorder-Black-Reality-and-White-Denial-in-America

~S~

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 07 Dec 14 - 05:37 AM

Stop and think a little, while what you say is not untrue, it completely misses the target through the hurt. It's not being black which is wrong, it's the consequence of that which is. You've got to get past this black-and-white dichotomy if we're ever going to make headway, and that might require a short period of reverse discrimination to highlight the people who can't cope with it. I too (don't we all? if not, why not, you're losing out) have black friends in one of the most deprived areas of London, and we treat each other as people whose skin just happens to be of different colours.
Problems only come from those who see the skin as a short-cut identifier of a fundamental difference in culture in a negative way. It's the reaction which is wrong and has to be sorted, not saying it like it is allows them to get away with it. In that headline, it either suggests all cops are racist - and I hope not - or that the authority of the cop is such that the question cannot be addressed - which may be true, thanks to the idea that Grand Juries can be led by the nose in the States and the track record in the UK of malfeasance in public office in places like Oldham. If so, it's wrong, and that is the question under examination: in the UK the first hearing is almost always before a magistrate who's been around the block a few times, addressing the US question.
Emphasising the race rather than the discrimination just victimises further, and actualy plays the racists game for them. Criminals exist in all communities, at least potentially in the eyes of the Law which treats all equally, and to say "I can't be held to account because I'm black" is also in and of itself racist - and that may also be an element of the pproblem in Ferguson. Not the critical part, but a part none the less. To say "Your judgement, Mr Policeman, is wrong because you (among others, but we'll start with you because you're sheltering them) don't apply the Law equitably (in equal proportion to all)" is addressing the heart of the problem, and the question then becomes whether Mr Plod is capable of getting the balance right, after the training he's had, and if not how the hell he can be allowed to continue with the extra authority his post brings with it, as it turns the entire society racist to a degree.
In the UK, we've passed the point where we've asked the first question, asking the Police to correct their racist culture, in the 1999 Macpherson Report into the killing of Stephen Lawrence by a quasi-fascist gang operating under the shelter of the local police, which described the Police Force as a whole as institutionally racist. If they have not got it right fifteen years later, then next time there can be no mercy. We are currently asking the same question about widespread kowtowing at the very least to a bunch of paedophiles certainly highly-placed in certain communities and possibly in Parliament as well. That widens the question from "stop being racist" to "start doing your bloody jobs of applying the law equally". So fundamental is that challenge, though, that I think that if the evidence brings us to that position, then there may be cases for summary dismissals for gross misconduct, not least in public office.
But when things happen, they are reacted to. As I type, a deputy District Judge at Preston Magistrates Court has just steppped down after making some grossly disparagingly racist comments about an Asian witness. In this country (UK), we are becoming actively anti-racist not in a psotively-discriminatory way, but purely and simply by not accepting it in any shape or form. Indeed, we are becoming slightly anti-positive discrimination, because it has served its time: the need is to lift black communities which have suffered. It's not entirely there yet, though, Tottenham still has abusive landlords, but they are being exposed. The question is rather one of access to services - the queue for the support services at the local Council has to be seen to be believed. At least the distribution of public financing is weighted to address the question, discretionary money going to neighbourhoods proportionately to need.

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: wysiwyg
Date: 07 Dec 14 - 11:32 AM

How wonderful that you have the benefit of hindsight!

Rahere, what you don't have is the US legacy of an economy built upon slavery from its outset. We are where we are. I'm fine with following the leadership of Black leaders who have chosen which white US voices to work with, incorporate, and showcase. I haven't heard them rely on any white UK leaders, tho one of the best pieces in my training kit's resource library includes Black UK voices and, I believe, was UK-produced.

You might be surprised that no one in that piece agrees with how much progress you seem to think has been made. I hope someday the US will get where it needs to go, and that the UK will too.

~S~

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: wysiwyg
Date: 07 Dec 14 - 12:18 PM

My friend Nick Peterson is one of many Black voices I follow. He wrote this essay soon after the Garner grand jury decision. It reflects all the historical material I absorbed last year, about the US's actual beginnings-- I don't just 'parrot' what I have not first done my homework about.

[language warning]

The historical function of policing in America, even in the colonial days was to protect the bodies, property, and wealth of white men, particularly British imperialists. Under this premise white women and children become extensions of white men - worthy of protection. Black men, women and children become, on one hand, the property of and wealth producers for white men, and on the other, threats to white bodies, property, and wealth. The black body as an object embodies the blessing and the curse holding life and death, the survival of whiteness. Black resistance, then, the kind that would necessitate policing, becomes any act that would challenge a notion of black bodies as more than objects - making it criminal to claim humanity- or that would disrupt wealth production - making it criminal to be a free black body.

Policing of black bodies from the 17th century forward has been rooted in the premise that black bodies are a) property and b) obligated to fulfill the will and work in the best interest [of] white power. You cannot tease racism out of economic disenfranchisement in America, because the entire function of race has been to create, not a "class" - but a plantation of wealth-producing objects. Objects who are not human, whose bodies are only worth what they can be whipped into harvesting.

POTUS is shining example of how this works. PBO can be ANYTHING but Black. He can be educated, articulate, hardworking, a dad, a husband, a lawyer, a politician, a BlackAmerican, and even bi-racial, but he cannot embody Blackness, because that would undermine a founding value of the American Enterprise. In his position he must uphold what has always been upheld - the protection of white bodies, property, and wealth. And any black body that poses a threat to the institutionalized embodiment of whiteness is a black body that MUST be cut down and shown for the object it is in death - a nigga/er.

So for folks who think racism is only about tending to how one individual white person treats one individual black person, or having a black friend, or liking black music, or finding black babies so cute, or white cop hugging a black kid, you simply perpetuate the black-body-as-an-object racist ideology established hundreds of years ago.

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: olddude
Date: 07 Dec 14 - 01:23 PM

As we learned how to treat minorities from the British it continues. Some day I hope we treat all Americans as Americans

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 07 Dec 14 - 02:19 PM

Rahere, I suspect from what you say that you live somewhere fairly nice.

My village has a pub that was featured on the front page of the Torygraph with the loathsome Farage drinking in it.

My girlfriend lives in West Croydon. Visit it some time.

You don't seem to get it.

Subject: RE: Another Black Man Shot by Cop
From: wysiwyg
Date: 07 Dec 14 - 04:30 PM

Here are 5 things white folks can all start doing, do more, o better, and/or put into tangible action.

All 5 are also common threads running thru every anti-racism activity or program I've ever taken or presented. All 5 elements have been part of every relationship I've ever had with a POGM (person of the global majority) that survived my racist conditioning. All 5 can create change larger than they probably feel like at the time. In other words, you can take these to the bank.

I'd love to hear other's stories about when you did any of these 5, what happened, how it felt at the time, and/or what changed.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/05/franchesca-ramsey-video-ally_n_6275680.html

~Susan