Police Brutality Thread

[Nepenthe]

I discussed this last night in the statuses, but overall: anyone who uses the phrase "black on black crime" is probably a racist shitheel that can be ignored for multiple reasons. For one, the phrase is inherently racist because it attempts to ascribe undue urgency and uniqueness to a common phenomenon that most people just call, well, crime. Most crime is intraracial as a result of people congregating mostly with other like people. White people are overwhelmingly going to victimize other whites simply due to the convenience of proximity. Same with Asians, Latinos, Natives, etc.. Thus, there is nothing inherently unique to the concept of black people robbing or killing other black people.

Said racist phrase is really only used in response to discussions about systemic abuse of civilians on part of the government, which is a unique and frankly irrelevant situation to the idea of general crime. Anyone paying attention to BLM would know this, because the issue isn't police shooting blacks. The issue is police shooting blacks without much reason to and constantly walking away from the legal consequences that an actual perpetrator of "black on black crime"- if caught- would undoubtedly suffer from as a part of a justice system stacked against black people. As such, it's nothing more than a diversionary tactic.

(And really, when was the last time you saw a person who used the term or name-dropped "Chicago!" like a terrible ad lib on a rap song actually give a damn about these things outside of conversations about bias in the judicial system? These people don't go to black men/women or black leadership seminars, events, or marches because they're more likely to think they don't exist at all, hence the calls for "black leaders" (because we're a monolithic group that needs a shepherd or something) to stand up and "do something.")

In short, it's bullshit.

[Meta77]

As a black male I can honestly say I get a knot in my stomach everytime I hear BLM. I really detest them.

[KHCast]

Back to the ALM thing, honestly, wonder if something like this pic were to happen if the civil rights movement happened in our time.

Just goes to show how ridiculous it is though, undermining why these movements were created.

[Dizcrybe]

1 minute ago, Meta77 said:

As a black male I can honestly say I get a knot in my stomach everytime I hear BLM. I really detest them.

Would you care to explain why?

[Tani Coyote]

@Mikyeong and @Toby, there is the concept of "objective racism." This is where one's policies objectively harm one racial group more than another, regardless of intent.

Let's temporarily shift away from race before shifting back: abortion bans are objectively sexist. There are plenty of women who support abortion bans (for reasons of protecting the unborn child's life), but that doesn't make the bans any less sexist.

Now back to race, you don't have to be a principled racist to always back the police, always trust the courts, feel the War on Crime is a good idea, etc... but it's pretty obvious which racial category are the ones who suffer from this approach.

So yes. A black person backing these sorts of policies is an objective racist, even if not a subjective one.

Then you have the concept of respectability politics. There are plenty of black people (usually the ones who have managed to move into comfortable positions, avoid entanglement with the police, etc.) who feel contemptuous towards their less successful peers, asking "why can't they be just like me?"

It's sealed privilege in a can, no different than when a white person does it to a poor white. Everything that happens to them is 100% their fault, so goes the argument. But the data says that's a load of crap.

8 hours ago, Nepenthe said:

I discussed this last night in the statuses, but overall: anyone who uses the phrase "black on black crime" is probably a racist shitheel that can be ignored for multiple reasons. For one, the phrase is inherently racist because it attempts to ascribe undue urgency and uniqueness to a common phenomenon that most people just call, well, crime. Most crime is intraracial as a result of people congregating mostly with other like people. White people are overwhelmingly going to victimize other whites simply due to the convenience of proximity. Same with Asians, Latinos, Natives, etc.. Thus, there is nothing inherently unique to the concept of black people robbing or killing other black people.

You know, it's kind of humorous.

Those are the same people who usually reject identity politics. "Why do you have to emphasize that they're African American, just be American, oh my God!" But then they emphasize black on black crime (rather than just crime) whenever the discussion of brutality comes up...

It's delicious.

[Meta77]

4 minutes ago, Dizcrybe said:

Would you care to explain why?

Cause they are a bother. They do noting but undermine many. Sure some may be out to better themselves. But the world is not are evil as they try to paint it. Oh loe and boe all cops and laws are against us. We just want better treatment. Everyone is against us. Do not dare say all lives or blue lives. Only we matter the most. Oh please i have family on the blue line and not all cops or people of any race are evil. Some will be thats a granted but everytime I see them all i see are ranting raving people that would be better suited being at work or as the dallas cheif said. Get off the line and actually help if you want to do something. And some of us just want to keep working hard to do the things we do. I work everyday. I get up like anyone else and go about life. I know not everyone in the world is going to like me and some may undermine me because of my color but you know....who cares? Honestly people act as if 100% of the world has to bow to them and like them, no that dream world will never come to be. But thats just my view. If others feel they serve a good more power to you. Me I just roll my eyes and flip the channel whenever i see them.

[Rey Skywalker-Ren]

10 minutes ago, Meta77 said:

As a black male I can honestly say I get a knot in my stomach everytime I hear BLM. I really detest them.

I don't detest BLM; but as someone who is half black, I can say that there are times they lose credibility especially with violence whiten the BLM community. 

[Nepenthe]

7 minutes ago, Meta77 said:

Only we matter the most.

It's Black Lives Matter Too.

Not Black Lives Matter More.

This has been explained and demonstrated by the group time and time again.

[Tani Coyote]

13 minutes ago, Meta77 said:

Do not dare say all lives or blue lives.

Have you opted to completely ignore the various posts in this thread explaining why "all lives matter" and "blue lives matter" are disingenuous and completely miss the point?

Quote

Oh please i have family on the blue line and not all cops or people of any race are evil.

No one ever said that.

You don't even have to be evil to engage in brutality, because the culture you work with ultimately determines your behavior. The police culture is one of poor accountability. Sure, there are plenty of good cops who dread the day they have to pull that trigger. But there are also more than a fringe minority of bad ones who are going to take advantage of the poor accountability measures. No matter how good a person you are, having unchecked power is a recipe for disaster.

It doesn't even have to be about brutality, but the system itself. Black men get treated more harshly for the same crime. Black neighborhoods are overpoliced despite data saying police numbers don't really matter for crime control. Blacks are systematically denied opportunities to move up the socioeconomic ladder, making them at risk for repeat offenses. Then you have nonsense like the three strikes laws. The list is endless.

Quote

I know not everyone in the world is going to like me and some may undermine me because of my color but you know....who cares? Honestly people act as if 100% of the world has to bow to them and like them, no that dream world will never come to be.

So in other words, if you were born a few centuries ago, you'd be content to be a slave?

You're a human being. You have dignity. And unfortunately, sometimes you have to fight for it.

You shouldn't chalk this up to "dream worlds." No one has the right to oppress you.

12 minutes ago, Mikyeong said:

I don't detest BLM; but as someone who is half black, I can say that there are times they lose credibility especially with violence whiten the BLM community. 

Does that make their message any less true if they have bad apples, or even if the leadership were bad apples? Genetic fallacy and all.

The research is quite clear that black Americans are being disproportionately victimized by the status quo.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Then no offense, @Mikyeong and @Meta77, but you two are missing the entire point of why BLM is even a thing. And it's been stated numerous times in this topic over what it means. 

[Meta77]

1 minute ago, Nepenthe said:

It's Black Lives Matter Too.

Not Black Lives Matter More.

This has been explained and demonstrated by the group time and time again.

Dallas proves that wrong. When people say things like :well cops know how we feel now: and the beauty pageant winner who said she could not feel 100% bad for them. When they stop acting out and hooping and hollering as if the world is against them/us id feel better about saying it. But for now as far as it goes for me all waifus matter holds more a place in my mind than them. again if you like or support them that is fine seriously noting against anyone. its just how i view it. Not a lot gets my blood boiling honestly.

1 minute ago, Conquering Storm's Servant said:

Then no offense, @Mikyeong and @Meta77, but you two are missing the entire point of why BLM is even a thing.

Lol non taken :). Its all good as I said its just what I think. As long as people do not try to bring me to their cause im fine. They are not helping me. Ive got through most my life just fine without the noise.

[Dizcrybe]

1 minute ago, Meta77 said:

Cause they are a bother. They do noting but undermine many. Sure some may be out to better themselves. But the world is not are evil as they try to paint it. Oh loe and boe all cops and laws are against us. We just want better treatment. Everyone is against us. Do not dare say all lives or blue lives. Only we matter the most. Oh please i have family on the blue line and not all cops or people of any race are evil. Some will be thats a granted but everytime I see them all i see are ranting raving people that would be better suited being at work or as the dallas cheif said. Get off the line and actually help if you want to do something. And some of us just want to keep working hard to do the things we do. I work everyday. I get up like anyone else and go about life. I know not everyone in the world is going to like me and some may undermine me because of my color but you know....who cares? Honestly people act as if 100% of the world has to bow to them and like them, no that dream world will never come to be. But thats just my view. If others feel they serve a good more power to you. Me I just roll my eyes and flip the channel whenever i see them.

*deep inhale*

Oooooookay...

First of all, we've already discussed thoroughly how the "All Lives Matter" is reactionary bullcrap thrown out by people completely missing the point of BLM, right? Right.

Second, BLM has actually been working with police in many cities (including Dallas, before the shooting happened). So no, they don't think all police are "evil", or in less dramatic terms, racist, but they're focusing on the ones that are.

Third, I cannot for the life of me fathom how anyone could hear "we want equal treatment" and process that as "we want better treatment than everyone else". Like, are you paying attention at all or just purposely hearing what you want to hear because what is actually being said doesn't fir with your worldview? They're not asking 100% of the world to bow to them; they're asking for some bloody respect. What part of that do you not understand?

Fourth, this "stop protesting and get a job" and "I don't care about this stuff, why should you?" bullcrap is so pretentious, stuck-up, and stinking of privileged, racist, white person rhetoric that it almost makes me physically sick. You're doing you regardless of what people think of the color of your skin? Cool. Good for you. But don't give other people crap for not just sitting down, going "Oh, well" and accepting their lot in life and demanding something better. I hate it when people dismiss complaints about the difficulties black people experience brought on by the baked-in racism of American society as nothing more than whining. and to insist that we just "get over it" is both extremely arrogant and utterly despicable.

[Tani Coyote]

3 minutes ago, Meta77 said:

When people say things like :well cops know how we feel now: and the beauty pageant winner who said she could not feel 100% bad for them.

After the Orlando shooting, there were quite a few white Christians celebrating it. Saying how great it was for "sodomites" to be butchered.

These people are not representative of the mainstream. I say this as a gay man.

The same thing applies here. These people are not BLM, even if they happen to be a part of it.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Basically, this sums up BLM

[Nepenthe]

The guy who killed those police officers literally stated he had no affiliation to BLM, and BLM in general has derided the attacks, especially since they were the ones welcoming the police presence there in the first place.

It's also extremely shiesty and uncomfortable to condense protesting, organization, and policy proposals for fairer judicial treatment as "hooping and hollering."

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

It's really telling when the guy who shot the officers admits no connection to BLM that people will still try to pin it on the movement regardless.

And what does that really tell you? Because to me, it's that the people opposing the group know full and well the reality and arr trying to silence a movement into continuing to be victims. Almost Jim Crow all over again, but much more underhanded.

[Meta77]

6 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

The guy who killed those police officers literally stated he had no affiliation to BLM, and BLM in general has derided the attacks, especially since they were the ones welcoming the police presence there in the first place.

It's also extremely shiesty and uncomfortable to condense protesting, organization, and policy proposals for fairer judicial treatment as "hooping and hollering."

Such as when they jumped on stage when bernie was speaking back when he was campaigning. They have honestly done noting I see worthwhile nor their cause. MLK actually did something. Back then times were very dire. Being hung in trees, killed just for the color of your skin, stopped from going to certain schools, We take for granted just how far we have come. As I keep saying lol if you like them thats good. As for me and several others I know in my life we could care less for them or what they are "trying to do". No ones saying sit down and accept things. by no means, if someone wrongs you stand up for it, but that wronging is not as widespread as many make it out to me.

[Dizcrybe]

4 minutes ago, Meta77 said:

We take for granted just how far we have come.

Because to many of us, we haven't come far enough.

5 minutes ago, Meta77 said:

 if someone wrongs you stand up for it, but that wronging is not as widespread as many make it out to me.

Even if it's not (highly debatable)), the fact that it's happening at all is why BLM exists.

[Nepenthe]

25 minutes ago, Meta77 said:

Such as when they jumped on stage when bernie was speaking back when he was campaigning. They have honestly done noting I see worthwhile nor their cause. MLK actually did something. Back then times were very dire. Being hung in trees, killed just for the color of your skin, stopped from going to certain schools, We take for granted just how far we have come. As I keep saying lol if you like them thats good. As for me and several others I know in my life we could care less for them or what they are "trying to do". No ones saying sit down and accept things. by no means, if someone wrongs you stand up for it, but that wronging is not as widespread as many make it out to me.

You are allowed to disrupt political shows. It's literally a thing in American history.

BLM has also done things. They are the leading force of getting body cameras on cops, the increase in indictments, and have gotten the Democratic Party to pass an actual resolution supporting them, as well as smaller things such as the removal of racial/confederate imagery from public places and the firing of racist individuals. That's not nothing.

It's also funny that you talk about MLK when the signature piece of legislation he championed has been left gutted for about three years now, and you know, that whole thing where he was shot and killed with complacent assistance from the Memphis police department and FBI. He was literally killed because of law enforcement dicking around and not doing anything about the plot and yet you're here trying to invoke his name in a topic about police brutality against blacks. 

Also, no one is taking for granted that it's nice that white people can't hang us anymore. But I don't think the families of the affected victims of police deaths in recent years actively give a damn.

Finally, racial injustice doesn't depend upon how widespread you personally feel it is. It's a statistical reality that has been proven and supported time and time again. If you don't care, good for you I guess(?), but trying to undermine the movement in the manner you've been doing by acting like these things aren't problems because, well fuck, Jim Crow is over is excessively crass and ignorant.

EDIT: Here's a fun little cake topper. NYPD officer records a conversation where he is literally told to racially profile.

But it's not a problem, of course.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

1 hour ago, Meta77 said:

Such as when they jumped on stage when bernie was speaking back when he was campaigning. They have honestly done noting I see worthwhile nor their cause. MLK actually did something. Back then times were very dire. Being hung in trees, killed just for the color of your skin, stopped from going to certain schools, We take for granted just how far we have come. As I keep saying lol if you like them thats good. As for me and several others I know in my life we could care less for them or what they are "trying to do". No ones saying sit down and accept things. by no means, if someone wrongs you stand up for it, but that wronging is not as widespread as many make it out to me.

Yes, MLK actually did something. And you know what happened to him for doing so?
 

He got arrested, treated as a criminal and had everything about him get shitted upon for stirring trouble by daring to think that those dirty niggers from Africa could walk hand in hand with white people. Even more, people tried to associate the more militant and violent Malcolm X as someone who was in league with MLK, despite their beliefs being so far apart from each other that they weren't comparable whatsoever - almost like people are doing with the Dallas Shooter by associating him with BLM. And then some genius decided to go even further and assassinate MLK.

This is nothing short of history blatantly repeating itself and people sticking their heads in the sand over it. Oh sure, things are better now than they were 50 years ago when Jim Crow was a thing - black people aren't getting lynched, and a black person getting called the N word by a white person can now bash their face in with little repercussions instead of taking the insult or risk getting hanged, but that apparently didn't do enough since those 50 year issues just reared their ugly heads again almost the same way they did before with police brutality and discrimination. And that's all the more blatant when today, everyone has a camera by default that they can record these injustices and they still get ignored. What's going on now with BLM is the very parallel to what happened with MLK and the Civil Rights movement during Jim Crow.

EDIT: Uh...is there some sort of censoring program that is editing the N word? Noticed it was changing it to "waffles" every time I used it without the "s" at the end.

[Kuzu]

Ya know, its debates like these that are going to forever keep anything from changing. People throwing the blame toward everyone else but the system that perpetuates it. Police kill African Americans? The policemen are evil racists out to eliminate us. Policemen die by an out of control African American? its the protester's fault for starting this in the first place. 

In short, everyone is so emotionally charged by these turn of events that nobody can actually think rationally and focus on the actual problems, because so much easier to blame the ones that are in front of you. 

Now I'm not saying that's wrong because its been statistically proven that racial injustice toward African Americans still exists in this day and age, and the community is kind of tired of seeing men like Philandro Castille, Eric Garner, and the like being murdered for some flimsy ass reason and then its quietly swept under the rug by the higher ups after a few months of us hollering and nothing is actually accomplished. 

 

In short, there's a problem in front of us, but nobody knows how to solve it or even begin the process to solving it; so we spend most of our time shouting at each other to get our points across, or acting like "Its not our problem". Its a horrible situation and I can see why it drains people to see such a severe problem, but not actually having anyway of solving it in a conceivable way. Even I ask protesters how they plan on addressing the issues they've presented and they honest to god do not know.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I'm pretty certain that people knows how to solve the problem.

The problem is police brutality and injustice, and the solution to solving it is check and balances and actually having those abusing their power be held responsible. It's just that someone is blocking that solution from being done. Even worse, someone else has a more deranged idea of what the problem and solution are by pushing for more of a police state, one where the powerless can't do much against.

[Tani Coyote]

16 minutes ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

In short, there's a problem in front of us, but nobody knows how to solve it or even begin the process to solving it; so we spend most of our time shouting at each other to get our points across, or acting like "Its not our problem". Its a horrible situation and I can see why it drains people to see such a severe problem, but not actually having anyway of solving it in a conceivable way. Even I ask protesters how they plan on addressing the issues they've presented and they honest to god do not know.

They don't really need to. As Nepenthe pointed out, the BLM organizers have been able to use the momentum to score victories such as indictments for abuse and body cameras.

Ordinary people don't need to be THAT intimately informed (though ideally they'll have some grasp of wider issues). They just need capable leaders. That's why the leaders are where they are (ideally): they know better than you or me. We know what the problems are, but they're the ones with the more clearly outlined solutions.

As for "shouting" at people... When a person makes a point with no factual basis, the other side has to point out the factual error. What really doesn't get us anywhere is when we become a massive hugbox and don't point out the faults in other people's reasoning for fear of hurting their feelings. This is where the idea of a "safe space" ended up going horribly wrong; it started being about feelings rather than ensuring there was healthy discussion of opposing ideas.

While we can respect each other, we are by no means obligated to respect each other's opinion. The idea that we are all free to have our own ideas makes all those ideas equally valid is terrible.

Though ultimately... where's the shouting? Yes, it may seem hostile, but that's inherent to disagreement. Nobody's calling each other "asshole" or something here, but pointing out errors in the other person's logic. This is just how argument works.

[Nepenthe]

Also, BLM and its allies do actually have solid policy proposals aimed at reducing racial bias and improving the environment for officers to work in. They're not just shouting into the wind. They are attempting to get attention for these ideas and actual political implementation. However, the other "side" doesn't want to play ball.

[Tani Coyote]

http://bearingarms.com/ba-s/2016/07/13/new-level-crazy-black-lives-matter-protesters-bar-sick-infant-hospital/

This is quickly becoming the rallying cry of the right against BLM. A sick child happened to be in a car that was blocked by the protests, and so it's become to BLM the same way the woman with ten children is to welfare. "Oh my God, this is proof of how awful they are!"

Horror stories are not the way to make your argument. Yes, there are incidents of cops being attacked, but that's not the norm and with so many people involved, there will be cases of violence. This is not a damned Race War, as much as right wing pundits are salivating at the mouth to try and make it out as one.

Then there's the matter of if the protesters even knew there was a sick child in the car. The couple has a tough case to make if they can't prove the protesters knew, because you aren't really culpable for something bad if you didn't know about it. Hence why most things you sign say "to the best of my knowledge, this is correct."