Angry crowds took to the streets in Milwaukee on Saturday night to protest the shooting death of an armed man by a police officer hours earlier.
Protesters burned several stores and threw rocks at police in the city’s north side, leaving one officer injured. Smoke and orange flames filled the night sky. The incident started Saturday afternoon when two officers stopped two people who were in a car in the north side, according to the Milwaukee Police Department.Shortly after, both car occupants fled on foot as officers pursued them, police said. During the chase, an officer shot one of the two — a 23-year-old man who was armed with a handgun, according to authorities. “He (officer) ordered that individual to drop his gun, the individual did not drop his gun,” Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said. “He had the gun with him and the officer fired several times.”
The man died at the scene. It’s unclear whether the second occupant of the car is in police custody.
First Observation: The dead man, the armed suspect, the man whose death was the spark for the violence, was African-American. CNN’s report doesn’t mention that at all! Why? Is the information unimportant? In fact, it is the most important feature of the incident. It pains me to say it, but riots don’t happen when white citizens are shot by police, whether the victim was armed or not. CNN’s coverage is political correctness and cowardice, not journalism. A critical fact was omitted because it is unwelcome, not because it is superfluous.
This is news manipulation and misrepresentation by omission. This is unethical journalism.
“This is CNN.”
From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
A standoff between police and an angry crowd turned violent Saturday night in the hours after a Milwaukee police officer shot and killed an armed suspect during a foot chase on the city’s north side.
After an hours-long confrontation with officers, police reported at 10:15 p.m. that a gas station at N. Sherman Blvd. and W. Burleigh St. was set on fire. Police said firefighters could not for a time get close to the blaze because of gunshots. Later, fires were started at businesses — including a BMO Harris Bank branch, a beauty supply company and O’Reilly Auto Parts stores…
..At one point, the officers got in their cars to leave and some in the crowd started smashing the windows and side of a squad car. Another vehicle was set on fire. As officers returned to the scene, this time with more in riot gear, as many as seven shots could be heard about 8:45 to 9 p.m.
The shots appeared to be fired in the air by someone in the crowd…Soon thereafter, the crowd turned on and chased reporters and a photographer from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. One reporter was shoved to the ground and punched.Police later tweeted that an officer was hit in the head with a brick that was thrown through a squad window. Police said the officer was being treated at a hospital. At nearly 11 p.m., police tweeted that gunshots again were fired near N. 44th St. and W. Auer Ave.
Observation: Not that CNN is alone in this unconscionable aversion to telling the public what happened: this article too omits the fact that the “armed suspect” was black, except that in a later included quote from Milwaukee’s Democrat mayor, he alludes to it. How can such flagrant and deliberate burying of the lede be defended? Anyone? Are we assumed to know that when an armed suspect resists arrest, he must have been black? No, that wouldn’t be right. Does anyone who hasn’t been hibernating not know that “police-involved shootings” of black suspects have far different consequences and political implications in 2016 than when white suspects are shot? No, so the news media can’t argue that race is superfluous.
The report also omits the—I’d say it’s relevant, no?— fact that the rioters were also 100% African American.
I guess that looks bad, and gives ammunition to bigots. Gee, we can’t allow that. Responsible journalism requires that we hide that fact. Everyone will figure it out anyway, right? But at least we won’t be accused of being racist…
Is this really how journalists reason today?
It appears so.
This occurred late last night, so I will try to avoid getting ahead of the story while it is still developing, but here are some additional, and likely to be expanded upon,
Observations:
1. So now, apparently, it is no longer only the deaths of unarmed black suspects being shot by police that are deemed worthy of rioting by African American mobs, but the deaths of armed suspects too. What does this suggest and portend? Let’s see: In Ferguson, a viral lie that a young African American was shot and killed by a police officer while surrendering with his “hands up” causes riots. In Baltimore, unsubstantiated black activist claims that police deliberately killed a habitual petty criminal who was African American and who had been disarmed causes riots. Now in Milwaukee, the shooting of an armed African American who refused to drop his gun provokes rioting. The message this suggests is that segments of the African American community regard any police action resulting in violence to be inherently unjust and racist if it involves blacks.
It portends a complete breakdown in respect for law enforcement in the black community, and escalating violence enabled by cynical politicians and race-bullied media.
2. That is exactly the message that the Black Lives Matter movement—endorsed by Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee—has been promulgating for months. This is the poisonous fruit of that effort, and those who have fertilized the ground with their approval must be held accountable.
3. Forgive me as I resort for a moment into pure sarcasm, for it is the best way I know to express my contempt:
“Nah, this doesn’t cause police officers to eschew pro-active law enforcement! There is no ‘Ferguson Effect’! Why would the fact that defending yourself against an armed perp who is black risks riots and death cause police to avoid confrontations with criminals? The rise in murders across the country is completely unrelated to the intimidation and demonizing of police by black activists!”
4. From the Journal Sentinel story:
“Nefataria Gordon said she knew the man who had been killed by the officer. “He was a nice, good person. He was really respected. That’s why everyone came out. They’re angry.”
The nice man had a long criminal record, and was carrying a handgun taken in a March burglary. The owner of the stolen gun reported that 500 rounds of ammunition also were stolen.
When characters like this are “really respected” in a community, that community has a serious, dangerous, ethics problem. I hope that’s not too harsh. Gee, I wonder why so many kids from such a community grow up to be criminals too? I’m sorry, that’s more sarcasm. Once you start, it’s hard to stop.
5. A news conference regarding the riots ended with Aldermen Russell W. Stamper II and Khalif Rainey delivering statements blaming the riots on the frustrations of black Milwaukeeans. Rainey, who represents the area where the man was shot and the riots occurred, ended his remarks with an implied threat of more riots. He said in part,
“This entire community has sat back and witnessed how Milwaukee, Wis., has become the worst place to live for African-Americans in the entire country.”
I wonder if any fact-checker will dare to check that.
“Now this is a warning cry…”
No, this is riot based on a criminal with a gun being shot by police. The statement is a deflection of responsibility.
“Do we continue – continue with the inequities, the injustice, the unemployment, the under-education, that creates these byproducts that we see this evening? … The black people of Milwaukee are tired. They’re tired of living under this oppression. This is their existence. This is their life. This is the life of their children.”
And the rational response is to burn down businesses in the community, is that the point? When a community’s leadership rationalizes and justifies violence and destruction for any reason, but especially after an event like this, the credibility of the laments of such leadership is forfeited.
“Now what has happened tonight may have not been right…”
May not have been right?
“…I’m not justifying that.”
You just did!
“But no one can deny the fact that there’s problems, racial problems, here in Milwaukee, Wis., that have to be closely, not examined, but rectified. Rectify this immediately. Because if you don’t, this vision of downtown, all of that, you’re one day away. You’re one day away.”
OK, we’ll rectify the entire race problems of the community, the region and the nation over night. After all, nobody’s been paying any attention to this issue before. Thanks for the fair deadline. And don’t worry, you have no accountability or responsibility in the matter.
6. Fortunately, we have a black President who will immediately, any minute now, make an urgent address to the nation and the African-American community, emphatically supporting police, insisting that they must be allowed to enforce the law without fear of reprisals sparked by irresponsible activists, condemning the riots and rioters, and using his superb communications skills to unite the races and the nation rather than dividing them.
Oh, I forgot.
He’s playing golf today.
(He does have time for this, though.)
Never mind!
7. THIS story gets the “This Will Help Elect Donald Trump” label. Few have deserved it more.
UPDATE: The man who was shot was, indeed, African American.
Ethics Alarms 
Milwaukee 08/13/2016: “They’re White. Beat their @$$!”
I’m told Black people can’t be racist because, well, um, just because.
A possible way around that, couldn’t Black people ‘culturally appropriate’ racism from evil White people?
It’s not that they can’t mimic white racism. They justify this position by saying that the oppressed minority can’t, by definition, be racist. You need to be a bit more flexible and creative with your logic.
Animals.
Black people cannot culturally appropriate because cultural appropriation equals oppression plus bad fashion sense plus power, minus shame, and carry the one. Or something. I’m not good with the common core math.
“cultural appropriation equals oppression plus bad fashion sense plus power, minus shame, and carry the one. Or something.”
When I’m looking for simple answers to life’s complex questions, I find the “Occam’s Razor” approach best, and who better to stand and deliver that than the inimitable Thornton Melon.
He forgot the “minus one” part … but it worked out okay because he’s white, right? …Sarcasm is catching.
Where are you reading that the person shot by police was black? As far as I know, the police haven’t officially identified him yet. Which is probably why the news stories haven’t said much about that aspect. As you’ve noted, it is still very early in the story, and it will e interesting to see how the police officers’ stories change and evolve. The officer was supposedly wearing a body cam, so if it is favorable to the officer, we should see the footage fairly soon. If it isn’t favorable to the officer, we will find that the camera “malfunctioned”, the officer suddenly was not wearing the camera, or they will drag their feet about releasing it.
It’s always interesting to see what you focus on. You talk about Freddie Gray, but nothing at all about the recent Justice Department report about policing in Baltimore, showing that they engage in mass arrests with no probable cause, are actively hostile to sexual assault victims, and punish any police officer who speaks out against the corruption he might see (like planting drugs on suspects?). The people there had a right to feel deeply aggrieved, and very suspicious of the circumstances regarding the death of Freddie Gray. http://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2016/08/the-horror-of-the-baltimore-police-department/495329/
The relationship between the Baltimore Police Department and many of the communities it serves is broken,” the 163-page report states. “Officers seemed to view themselves as controlling the city rather than as a part of the city. Many others, including high ranking officers in the Department, view themselves as enforcing the will of the ‘silent majority.’”
The document lays out, in often sickening detail, the many ways Baltimore police abused the law, the people they were meant to serve, the public trust, and their own brothers in arms. In the wake of the failed prosecution of six officers for the death of Freddie Gray, the report serves as a reminder that rather than an isolated crime, the Gray case was symptomatic of a force that regularly arrested people for insufficient reasons, or no reasons at all, and used excessive force against them—but particularly, and uniquely, black citizens of the city. The Justice Department makes clear that African Americans in Baltimore were targeted and abused by the police, making this report a twin to the department’s report on Ferguson, Missouri, which my colleague Conor Friedersdorf wrote indicated a “conspiracy against black citizens.”
******************************************
Baltimore police routinely trample on First Amendment rights, arresting “members of the public for engaging in speech the officers perceive to be critical or disrespectful.” Supervisors have encouraged “facially unconstitutional” arrests for trespassing. One shift commander emailed a template for such arrests to officers and a sergeant. Even worse, the template contains blanks to be filled in for details of the arrest, including the arrest data and location and the suspect’s name and address, but does not include a prompt to fill in the race or gender of the arrestee. Rather, the words “black male” are automatically included in the description of the arrest. The supervisor’s template thus presumes that individuals arrested for trespassing will be African American.
*************************************************************************
Even as the report finds widespread abuses within the department, it leaves no doubt that it is black Baltimoreans who bear the brunt of this abuse. This is true of both stops and arrests. In both cases, African American pedestrians and drivers are both stopped at numbers that far outweigh their share of the population. They are also more likely to be searched—even though “BPD officers found contraband twice as often when searching white individuals compared to African Americans during vehicle stops and 50 percent more often during pedestrian stops.”
Black citizens represent the vast majority of those stopped in predominantly black neighborhoods (93 percent of stops vs. 90 percent of the population in the Eastern District); mixed neighborhoods (83 percent of stops vs. 57 percent of the population in the Central District); and mostly white ones (66 percent of stops vs. 23 percent of the population in the Southeast District).
****************************************************************************
The department repeatedly engaged in improper strip searches, the report finds. In one incident, a woman was pulled over by two officers, one male and one female. She was instructed to strip.
The female officer then put on purple latex gloves, pulled up the woman’s shirt and searched around her bra. Finding no weapons or contraband around the woman’s chest, the officer then pulled down the woman’s underwear and searched her anal cavity….The search occurred in full view of the street, although the supervising male officer claimed he “turned away” and did not watch the woman disrobe… Officers conducted this highly invasive search despite lacking any indication that the woman had committed a criminal offense or possessed concealed contraband.
In fact, the officers found no wrongdoing, and the woman was released without being charged. In another case, a teenage boy reported that an officer “pulled down the teenager’s pants and boxer shorts and strip-searched him in full view of the street and his girlfriend.”
Who wouldn’t riot living under such conditions?
I wouldn’t; you wouldn’t. Civilized, law abiding, rational people don’t riot.
I live near Baltimore. It has crime, poverty and race problems. The Justice Department has no credibility with me, and shouldn’t have with anyone. It isn’t capable of producing a non-political, unbiased report on race.
So you’re playing the old “why are you writing about this and not about that” card? Lame. I reported on the terrible treatment of poor A-A communities in the St. Louis/ Ferguson areas, because the source was Radley Balko, whom I trust.
It is 100% certain that the man was African American. If it has not been confirmed, it’s because the news media doesn’t want to confirm it…wilful ignorance. A woman was quotes as saying he was respected in the community, and nobody asked her, “Who was this guy?” so she could answer, “Oh, he was that Danish masseuse everyone knew.” It was a black area, he lived in teh area, and the residents rioted after he was shot. You’re right, no reason to conclude the guy was black. Black communities always riot when white perps are shot…
Maybe he would.
deery said, “Who wouldn’t riot living under such conditions?”
What the hell are you talking about?
You’re justifying INTENTIONAL RACIAL VIOLENCE against innocent citizens and their property.
Do you even know the difference between a protest and a violent riot?
Seriously deery, that was NOT a rhetorical question; do you know the difference?
He won’t admit that he knows the difference if it means finding fault with a progressive interest group.
That sounds like what a hypocritical partisan hack does, a progressive tool.
live near Baltimore. It has crime, poverty and race problems. The Justice Department has no credibility with me, and shouldn’t have with anyone. It isn’t capable of producing a non-political, unbiased report on race.
Yes. So obviously the people are just making it all up. And the report was not on race, but the policing policies of the Baltimore Police Department. The report details not just problems with unequal enforcement in race, but harassment of women who dare file sexual assault claims, corruption within the department, and a broken system in filing police complaints. But the Justice Department probably made that stuff up too. Or is it just they race part that you are willing to dismiss out of hand, automatically?
If you really can’t imagine why people would riot and explode under such conditions, try to imagine your wife, on her way home, stopped by the police, forced to take off her clothes and have fingers inserted into her anus by those same police, in full view of anyone passing by the side of the road. Not for any particular reason the police can articulate, just because. Multiply that a few hundred times over the years.
Imagine walking down your block, strolling with a friend, and the police swoop in, and arrest you, your friend, and everyone else who happens to be outside at the time Not for any particular reason, they are just too lazy to arrest people who might have actually done something, and need to gin up their numbers. Everyone, hundreds of people at a time, go to the jail. They release you, if you sign a waiver promising not to sue them. Anyone who doesn’t sign stays in jail for a few days, possibly losing their job in the process. After your arrest, whenever you have a job application, you have to mark “Yes” where the application asks “Have you ever been arrested or convicted of a crime?” Imagine what that does to your future career prospects. Multiply that a few thousand times over the years.
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/04/29/david-simon-on-baltimore-s-anguish#.xNmzgckYc
Imagine you have been hassled by the cops, and some officer decides that you are too “mouthy” for knowing your rights. He decides to plant drugs on you, in full view of the other police officers. You protest at the station, ask the other officers to come forward, no one does, because they know full well the reprisals that await them if they do. And multiply that.
You complain, for years, decades, about this treatment. Everyone shrugs. You have the nerve to live in a neighborhood that is poor, so obviously you have no rights Complaints to the police go nowhere. The media ignores all but the most sensational of cases. And everyone seems quite content for you, and people that live near to suffer, as long as they don’t have to share your indignities.
I’ve seen white people riot because their favorite sports team lost (or won!). Of course people, feeling that they have no legitimate means to redress their wrongs will riot. It might not be right, but it is pretty much inevitable. Martin Luther King Jr. said that “A riot is the language of the unheard.” Perhaps rather than dismissing people’s problems with the way they are systematically policed in those neighborhoods, we actually listen and try to do something about it. Riots against the police are rarely about just the one straw. Rather, it is usually about the other 1,000 lbs that broke the camel’s back.
1. I didn’t say anyone was making anything up. I said Justice Department reports have no credibility. They are political documents created by a hyper-politicized and partisan arm of a hyper-partisan administration. If I was going to write about the report, I’d write about that.
2. The report was about racially biased police conduct. Obviously, that’s a report about race. Have you no shame?
3. I have been an observer of the American scene for longer than I care to acknowledge the claim that among all citizens, only African-American communities experience injustice and frustration is such selective observation that it defies belief.
4. Again, nothing justifies destroying your own community, looting it, and breaking all laws of civilization. Not Rodney King, not ML King’s assassination, not Ferguson, not Freddie Gray, not this. And no, I can’t imagine ever over-riding all of my values to behave like that, no matter what the provocation. Giving a pass to any community that does is damning by low expectations.
5. Baltimore’s mayor is African American. It is a city in one of the most liberal and Democratic states in the union. In democracies, we are responsible for the governments we tolerate.
6. As if all of the Wisconis rioters, most of them or even a significant number of them experienced all or even one of the dystopian lives you describe. You sound like Robert Stack, going nuts in “Airplane.” “Do you know what it’s like, having your face kicked by an iron boot?”
7. You really believe no progress has been made at all in civil rights! That “Everyone shrugs.” That the poor have no rights. The the race-obsessed he media ignores all but the most sensational of cases. And everyone seems quite content for you, and people that live near to suffer, as long as they don’t have to share your indignities. What a crock. I won’t challenge your sincerity, but boy, what a biased view of reality. And none of these people so sadistically oppressed have any input into their own fates!
8. “Of course people, feeling that they have no legitimate means to redress their wrongs will riot. It might not be right, but it is pretty much inevitable.” No, it’s not. And a community that behaves mindlessly and destructively forfeits respect and sympathy. Stop electing crooks to represent you. Start holing them accountable. Start teaching values. Stop tolerating crime and drugs. Stop having kids without a stable family; stop having kids you can’t take care of. Stop wasting money on gambling, the lottery, liquor and drugs. Stop abandoning the kids you spawn. Find some real leaders. Stop “respecting” people who steal guns. I know enough about the pathology in the black community to know this isn’t accomplished easily or quickly, but I do know that rioting isn’t part of the solution.
9. “I’ve seen white people riot because their favorite sports team lost”—really? REALLY? You really want to resort to this tired old false equivalency? As I said, shameless.
1. I didn’t say anyone was making anything up. I said Justice Department reports have no credibility. They are political documents created by a hyper-politicized and partisan arm of a hyper-partisan administration. If I was going to write about the report, I’d write about that.
To say they have ‘no credibility” is just another way of saying that you think they are lying and made the whole thing up.
2. The report was about racially biased police conduct. Obviously, that’s a report about race. Have you no shame?
The report is about an investigation into the Baltimore Police department. The report is not solely devoted to racial misconduct among the department towards citizens, but also internal corruption, sexual harassment, retialiation, etc. here is a direct link to the 163 report, just in case you think I’m making it up: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3010223-BPD-Findings-Report.html
3. I have been an observer of the American scene for longer than I care to acknowledge the claim that among all citizens, only African-American communities experience injustice and frustration is such selective observation that it defies belief.
I don’t think anyone contends that African-Americans are the only ones to experience injustice or frustration. the poor, the mentally ill, homeless communities, et. also bear the brunt of unfair, often unjust policing. the African-American community just tends to be larger, and more segregated than those communities, with a stronger group identity.
4. Again, nothing justifies destroying your own community, looting it, and breaking all laws of civilization. Not Rodney King, not ML King’s assassination, not Ferguson, not Freddie Gray, not this. And no, I can’t imagine ever over-riding all of my values to behave like that, no matter what the provocation. Giving a pass to any community that does is damning by low expectations.
No one gets a pass. Though what does a community do when they feel they are the prey of their government, with no rights? People took over a government building over grazing rights recently. What happens when the police feel they have the right to arrest you without cause, publicly strip-search you, and injure and exhort you? And you had no legitimate recourse? Conservatives talk about armed insurrection for way less cause than that. Maybe such violence is reserved for white people?
5. Baltimore’s mayor is African American. It is a city in one of the most liberal and Democratic states in the union. In democracies, we are responsible for the governments we tolerate.
As detailed in the report, the police feel themselves separate and apart from the legitimately elected government They represent the silent majority.” Reforming the police is not so simple, as we have seen in New York with de Blasio’s attempts at police reform. The police simply stopped working They were willing to put innocent lives in danger so they could continue to enjoy the privilege of stopping minorities whenever they wanted, on no pretext whatsoever.
6. As if all of the Wisconis rioters, most of them or even a significant number of them experienced all or even one of the dystopian lives you describe. You sound like Robert Stack, going nuts in “Airplane.” “Do you know what it’s like, having your face kicked by an iron boot?”
The Milwaukee police department has a long history of troubles with the minority community. This riot is just the latest in a long line of them about police brutality. Going back at least 50 years or so.
7. You really believe no progress has been made at all in civil rights! That “Everyone shrugs.” That the poor have no rights. The the race-obsessed he media ignores all but the most sensational of cases. And everyone seems quite content for you, and people that live near to suffer, as long as they don’t have to share your indignities. What a crock. I won’t challenge your sincerity, but boy, what a biased view of reality. And none of these people so sadistically oppressed have any input into their own fates!
Progress has been made. But the police departments have one of the slowest to change. I think the advent of both social media and the ubiquity of the camera phone have both done more to raise awareness than a thousand protests have done Seeing is believing. And of course you don’t the worldview that this is happening Obviously. But again, I have some of these tactics with my own eyes. Like I said, seeing is believing.
8. “Of course people, feeling that they have no legitimate means to redress their wrongs will riot. It might not be right, but it is pretty much inevitable.” No, it’s not. And a community that behaves mindlessly and destructively forfeits respect and sympathy. Stop electing crooks to represent you. Start holing them accountable. Start teaching values. Stop tolerating crime and drugs. Stop having kids without a stable family; stop having kids you can’t take care of. Stop wasting money on gambling, the lottery, liquor and drugs. Stop abandoning the kids you spawn. Find some real leaders. Stop “respecting” people who steal guns. I know enough about the pathology in the black community to know this isn’t accomplished easily or quickly, but I do know that rioting isn’t part of the solution.
So unwed mothers don’t deserve a police force that is responsive to their needs? So alcoholics deserve to mass arrested without probable cause? Rambunctious teens deserve to be strip searched? Suspected drug dealers deserve to have actual drugs planted on them? Either the Constitution applies to all the people, or it doesn’t. The whole “black people are pathological and thus don’t deserve the same rights as upstanding white citizens” is a rancid, loathsome argument, a red herring, but somehow, not at all surprising, as it pops up so often in these types of discussions.
9. “I’ve seen white people riot because their favorite sports team lost”—really? REALLY? You really want to resort to this tired old false equivalency? As I said, shameless.
Hmph. Yes, I’m the shameless one.
1.
To say they have ‘no credibility” is just another way of saying that you think they are lying and made the whole thing up.
Don’t put words in my mouth, especially when they are as completely wrong as these. “No credibility” means I don’t trust their objectivity, their selection of data, or their motives.
2.
The report is about an investigation into the Baltimore Police department. The report is not solely devoted to racial misconduct among the department towards citizens, but also internal corruption, sexual harassment, retialiation, etc.
Yes, it is about all those things, but you said it was not about race. Of course it is. If you had said it isn’t only about race, I wouldn’t have called you on it (but its mostly about race.) I read it yesterday.
3. I don’t think anyone contends that African-Americans are the only ones to experience injustice or frustration. the poor, the mentally ill, homeless communities, et. also bear the brunt of unfair, often unjust policing. the African-American community just tends to be larger, and more segregated than those communities, with a stronger group identity.
And, unlike those other groups, resort to self-destructive violence and riots.
4.
No one gets a pass. Though what does a community do when they feel they are the prey of their government, with no rights?
When they falsely and ignorantly feel taht way to relieve themselves of their own responsibility? Something else.
5. As detailed in the report, the police feel themselves separate and apart from the legitimately elected government They represent the silent majority.” Reforming the police is not so simple, as we have seen in New York with de Blasio’s attempts at police reform. The police simply stopped working They were willing to put innocent lives in danger so they could continue to enjoy the privilege of stopping minorities whenever they wanted, on no pretext whatsoever.
And there you have a perfect example of the bias that makes me distrust the report.
6.
The Milwaukee police department has a long history of troubles with the minority community. This riot is just the latest in a long line of them about police brutality. Going back at least 50 years or so.
“Everybody does it” and about 20 other rationalizations for unethical conduct.
7.
Progress has been made. But the police departments have one of the slowest to change. I think the advent of both social media and the ubiquity of the camera phone have both done more to raise awareness than a thousand protests have done Seeing is believing. And of course you don’t the worldview that this is happening Obviously. But again, I have some of these tactics with my own eyes. Like I said, seeing is believing.
Police departments deal with the part of the population that breaks laws and tries to harm them. They are nor representative of the whole culture, nor should they be.
8.
So unwed mothers don’t deserve a police force that is responsive to their needs? So alcoholics deserve to mass arrested without probable cause? Rambunctious teens deserve to be strip searched? Suspected drug dealers deserve to have actual drugs planted on them? Either the Constitution applies to all the people, or it doesn’t. The whole “black people are pathological and thus don’t deserve the same rights as upstanding white citizens” is a rancid, loathsome argument, a red herring, but somehow, not at all surprising, as it pops up so often in these types of discussions.
Again, putting (vile) words in my mouth. They have exactly the same rights, and those rights should be enforced. But the problems of the African-American community cannot be solely or even primarily attributed to a lack of rights. Ignoring either part of the equation is dishonest and self-defeating.
9.
Hmph. Yes, I’m the shameless one.
Yes. You sure are. You know, “You’re a bigger one” kind of lost its punch as a rebuttal around age 10.
Again, putting (vile) words in my mouth. They have exactly the same rights, and those rights should be enforced. But the problems of the African-American community cannot be solely or even primarily attributed to a lack of rights. Ignoring either part of the equation is dishonest and self-defeating.
People aren’t ignoring other problems in the black community. People can walk and chew gum at the same time. But the other problems in the black community are red herring when it comes to the question of whether the police are routinely and systematically violating people’s rights in the black community.
– “Hey, the police are committing mass arrests without probable cause! They are literally arresting thousands of people for no reason whatsoever!”
– “Well, but what about unwed mothers, huh?!! What about that?!!”
Obviously some people are willing to be complacent, talk past the issue, and not address the specific subject at hand. If the police are in fact, routinely violating people’s rights, then something should be done about it. State it out loud. If one feels that people are making up these violations, and the whole thing is just overblown, then just say so. If one feels that the police are routinely violating people’s rights, but it’s ok, because those people deserve it, then say that as well. No need to be coy.
They are not a red herring, deery. Nobody has to become involved with police. Are the biased stops infuriating and wrong? Sure. Are the riots over that? No.
They are not a red herring, deery. Nobody has to become involved with police.
And this is the problem in a nutshell. You are basically admitting that you don’t feel there is a valid issue that people are protesting against, for whatever reason.
If you read the links I submitted upthread you would see that the Baltimore police were routinely, routinely sweeping up and arresting people in certain neighborhoods The hoodlums, the loiterers, grandmas sitting on their stoop, kids coming from school, lovers out for a stroll. Everybody. People by the thousands who were doing nothing wrong except living their lives were all gathered up and booked. Mass arrests so common that they had a nickname for it, a “humble.”
Police were cited for extorting the citizens they police, both for money and sex, and arresting people who refused to go along with this extortion.
Police were stopping citizens, and forcing them to strip in public, and proceeding to conduct cavity searches out there in the open, without any cause whatsoever.
And you don’t think this influences how a community perceives the police, and how they react when certain incidences happen? They way police have historically, and currently policed the black community has always ensured that it is a powder keg about to explode, needing only the merest match to set it aflame. Like I said before, and it bears repeating, some people only want to look a the straw, and not the other 1,000 pounds that broke the camel’s back. These are not isolated incidences.
1. Incidents or incidence, but there is no applicable word “incidences.” Drives me nuts.
2. No, there’s justification to protest just as there is justification to protest capital punishment, though I have little symppathy for anyone threatend by execution, beacuse they accepted the risk with their conduct.
3. Nice try, shifting from rioting, burning and looting to “protests.” Didn’t work, though. There is a right to protest. No right to riot.
4. Much to your surprise, I’m sure, the man shot was indeed black, just as I deduced.
2. No, there’s justification to protest just as there is justification to protest capital punishment, though I have little sympathy for anyone threatened by execution, because they accepted the risk with their conduct.
So once again, just to make it clear, you feel the police tactics are justified because people brought it on themselves? Or that people are making it up? Both?
There are no “tactics,” just individual situations in which some cops, understandably or not, overreact, or react incompetently. Brown? Brought it on himself. Garner? Brought it on himself, and an over-reaction by cops. Scott? Criminal over-reaction by a cop, but also a victim violating the law and resisting arrest. If the three victims don’t break the law, or, if they do, don’t resist arrest, they are all alive. That’s not irrelevant.
There are no “tactics,” just individual situations in which some cops, understandably or not, overreact, or react incompetently.
What was Eric Crawford doing wrong?
So no response to the Baltimore report? The report is very through, uses hard numbers and witnessed documented incidents. If biased, how so? And the well-documented mass arrests? The extortion rings? The “rough rides”? What about NYC policies of specifically stopping minorities for stop and frisk? Chicago “black sites” used to torture minority suspects? You accept that Ferguson has a systematic policing problem, but those of much larger cities, with a longer history and just as much documentation, if not more so, do not have many of the same problems? These are all just “isolated”?
ok.
You are intentionally misunderstanding what I have written—clearly—and I’m not wasting more time repeating what you should know: bias affects results of studies, and biased studies can’t be trusted. You’re bias is confirmation bias.
JOHN Crawford was a pure accident, not racial in nature, and a perfect storm of bad judgment and bad luck. It has no signicance whatsoever. It’s a close cousin of Tamir Rice, and the main culprit was the dispatcher, who told officers that someone had a gun, when they really had toys.
Jack,
It’s become clear that you’re beating a dead horse.
Deery clearly doesn’t know the difference between a protest and a riot and he refuses to take into account anything that is outside his tunnel vision of the world, he moves from one deflection to another; he’s either willfully ignorant, intentionally obtuse, or just plain stupid – I suspect he’s being intentionally obtuse for ideological reasons – he’s a Progressive hack.
Deery fascinates me. He’s smart, he doesn’t have thin skin, he’s often perceptive…so why does he do this? How did he get this way? What combination of upbringing, indoctrination, ideological rigidity, education and personal trauma makes someone like this?
Like I asked, you truly believe that everything reported, all the mass arrests, the targeted stop and frisks, the black op sites are all just “isolated” or the results of bias in reporting?
In other words, “nothing to see here, move along.”
ok. If you truly feel that people are complaining, protesting, and rioting over nothing, I can understand your outrage. As long as you don’t see it, or hear about it, and it doesn’t affect you, it doesn’t exist. Fair enough.
When they are rioting over an armed felon being shot, that’s “nothing.” If they want to protest over unjust stops, then protest over unjust stops. It is very difficult to distinguish racially motivated police violence from the unavoidable vicissitudes of police work. Assuming racism and animus in all cases or any ambiguous case is wrong; so is assuming no racism or animus in all cases. And police deserve the benefit of the doubt.
I have never said that there was no problem. That’s the third time in one thread that you’ve put words in my mouth. The Milwaukee riots were indefensible, and you’ve attempted to defend them. Which is ridiculous.
Jack said, “Deery fascinates me. He’s smart, he doesn’t have thin skin, he’s often perceptive…so why does he do this? How did he get this way? What combination of upbringing, indoctrination, ideological rigidity, education and personal trauma makes someone like this?”
Typical collegiate Progressive indoctrination of weak character?
You ever seen what happens to people with weak character when they get involved with cults?
Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character, and once character is compromised indoctrination is not difficult.
Progressivism has all the characteristics of a cult.
You forgot shooting, Jack. Rrioting, burning, looting, and shooting.
joed68 said, “Progressivism has all the characteristics of a cult.”
“All”?
Hyperbole?
Most definitely not “all” the characteristics but certainly some; unfortunately, there are many groups that likely have some of the same characteristics.
If Donald Trump said that, they’d fact-check him.
Sincere question, Deery:
I currently live about a 60 second drive outside of Baltimore City. I lived in a very poor part of the city as a 20 year old. At that time, I was armed with little more than a high school education, had almost no money to my name, wasn’t enrolled in college, drove a car that was 14 years old, and worth about $500, and was constantly working 2 jobs just to pay my meager rent. Eventually, I got an undergraduate degree and 2 masters, currently teach. Over the years, I have applied for and was hired for dozens of jobs in Baltimore City, many of which I was hired while still an undergrad, and thus, still only armed with HS diploma.
I also have a tremendous respect for the police, would never dream of rioting as a way to enact “change”, and am repulsed by the idea of a community so fervently, collectively, and outwardly wanting to change how police handle black armed suspects, but not how black armed suspects treat the rest of the citizens.
You have written phrases, stating that people who are just walking down the block are swooped upon, and caught in a dragnet, with the implication being that it was solely for being black, and presumably male. The Baltimore riots of several years ago, was in large part, about the inability to access jobs and education. My question(s) to you: Why have I been excluded from this? Is my skin not black enough? Can the police detect in advance that my grammar isn’t broken, and I likely know my rights better than the average black, so I’m left alone? I have a lead foot, and (legitimately) been pulled over for speeding more time that I can count…and let off with warnings, from white cops, rather than tickets, way, way more times than I deserve….why? How is it that I’ve managed to, when pulled over (again, legitimately) multiple times, managed to not get mouthy with the police, not just b/c I see it as a means to an end, but because I KNOW and ACKNOWLEDGE the reason why I was pulled over, and understand that their position is one that is to be respected? Im black, aren’t I supposed to be programmed differently?
Why have I not been arrested for driving while black? Why have I not been harassed?
For all the non-blacks who lecture other non-blacks on the oppressive cloud that blacks must live under, why is my story, and stories or similar blacks, ignored?
I know this is a rambling series of questions; unfortunately I am running late for work, and do not have time to proofread or edit. But one, final, important question: Do you agree with other prominent blacks, like Marc Lamont Hill of CNN, that blacks are incapable of being racist?
Chris Bentley,
I think the answer to most of your questions is that you were taught, and you learned, what respect and responsibility means and it became an integral part of your being.
Have you ever thought of being a Big Brother and sharing some of those character building experiences with those that are growing up lacking positive role models? Maybe you could consider it; youth could use that kind of experience and shown that there is “another way”. Sometimes it only takes a moment to permanently change the future of someone’s life for the better.
You have written phrases, stating that people who are just walking down the block are swooped upon, and caught in a dragnet, with the implication being that it was solely for being black, and presumably male. The Baltimore riots of several years ago, was in large part, about the inability to access jobs and education. My question(s) to you: Why have I been excluded from this? Is my skin not black enough? Can the police detect in advance that my grammar isn’t broken, and I likely know my rights better than the average black, so I’m left alone?
You realize you are just one data point among millions, correct? People are not making up the mass arrests, the city ended up having to settle with the ACLU over this issue a few years ago: http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-06-23/news/bal-naacp-settlement-0623_1_arrests-by-city-police-zero-tolerance-naacp-and-aclu
The lawsuit, filed first in Baltimore Circuit Court and later filed in federal courts, condemned the city’s practice of jailing citizens for quality-of-life crimes such as loitering — one of the central strategies once emphasized by police here. The issue received widespread attention after The Baltimore Sun reported on overcrowding at the city jail.
The plaintiffs included a 19-year-old Morgan State engineering student, a Parkville elementary school teacher, a doctoral candidate in neurobiology from Texas, and two Pennsylvania residents visiting Baltimore for a bachelor party.
Presumably those people had jobs and education. You were lucky, they were not. That seems to be the only real difference.
Do you agree with other prominent blacks, like Marc Lamont Hill of CNN, that blacks are incapable of being racist?
It depends on the definition of “racism” we are talking about here. If you are speaking in the popular, colloquial usage of the term, can black people be bigots? Of course. Black people can be just as bigoted as any other race. If we are talking about the technical definition of racism, where bigotry+ systematic power = racism, then no, by definition, black people can not be racist, lacking the systematic power necessary.
deery said, “If we are talking about the technical definition of racism, where bigotry+systematic power=racism, then no, by definition, black people can not be racist, lacking the systematic power necessary”
That is a tunnel-visioned fallacy to intentionally deflect away from individual racism; also claiming that it’s the technical definition is simply a lie.
Using your illogical argument, without systematic power, there can be no racists, ever; and that’s a fallacy. Systematic power is not a base requirement for an individual to be racist or to show racism, a systematic power that is racist is a secondary symptom of racism. You’ve contained your thoughts on this in a little bitty box that intentionally ignores, rationalizes, and justifies blatant racism from blacks; what you need to be doing is condemning racism on all fronts including race-baiting. What you have actually done is to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are unwilling to even consider that there are racist who are black and when you get down to the real guts of it, it’s open hypocrisy and can be considered racist.
It’s becoming more and more evident with every comment you post in this thread that you’re an active apologist for blatant racism from blacks – WHY!
It’s also becoming more and more evident that you’re purpose here is much more than just a Progressive voicing his opinions.
I was being brief, but it is not a definition I created. If you would like to learn more about the academic definition of racism, you can read about it here: http://sociology.about.com/od/Ask-a-Sociologist/fl/Whats-the-Difference-Between-Prejudice-and-Racism.htm
That’s not a real or honest definition. That’s a political and ideologically manufactured definition used to justify an unethical double standard and race hypocrisy. Racism is a word. The word predates such dishonest manipulation. The WORD means…
“the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races….prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior.”
That left wing academics re-defined the word to justify “social justice” rhetoric and try to establish a racism double standard is classic Orwell stuff. Naturally, you endorse it. It is so ethically and intellectually disgusting, words fail me.
Deery: “What was Eric Crawford doing wrong?”
The hockey player? Let me make a list. But I have the feeling you’re talking about someone else. If you’re talking about Eric Garner, he was caught selling illegal smokes for about the bajillionth time, if you’re talking about John Crawford, that’s probably one of the best cases BLM could have rallied around, one that I actually have a whole lot of sympathy for, and I think it’s a dirty, rotten shame that BLM doesn’t focus on these good cases, instead choosing to pedestalize the absolute worst gases.
Deery: “Like I asked, you truly believe that everything reported, all the mass arrests, the targeted stop and frisks, the black op sites are all just “isolated” or the results of bias in reporting? In other words, “nothing to see here, move along.””
I don’t think anyone’s said that… These situations have a tendency to sort themselves out properly in the long run. The black community was up in arms over Michael Brown, but as the evidence came in, it painted a drastically different picture than “Hands Up Don’t Shoot”, and that seems the norm more than it does the exception.
I’m going to bold this because it’s such an important concept: If you don’t think that you can trust the police, or police friendly media, because there have been cases where their dishonesty has been obvious, public, and unforgivable… By what vehicle do you think I should believe either BLM or BLM friendly media, when damn near everything they’ve ever decided to champion has been proven in the long run to be a complete lie?
Zoltar: “Typical collegiate Progressive indoctrination of weak character?”
No, bias makes us stupid. Otherwise intelligent people can take some cripplingly stupid positions when longstanding biases are involved. I’m often just completely blown away by how the nicest of people can turn into complete and utter asshats at the mere mention of the g-word.
“It depends on the definition of “racism” we are talking about here. If you are speaking in the popular, colloquial usage of the term, can black people be bigots? Of course. Black people can be just as bigoted as any other race. If we are talking about the technical definition of racism, where bigotry+ systematic power = racism, then no, by definition, black people can not be racist, lacking the systematic power necessary.”
“Prejudice Plus” isn’t a “technical definition”, it’s the embodiment of the mental gymnastics liberals did to intellectually justify their self loathing. I dare you to cite a dictionary that mentions power plus. But if it helps you understand my point of view, because I don’t believe in your gods, I don’t follow your rules, and I will never accept “Prejudice Plus” as a definition of racism. When I refer to racism, I mean the grouping of certain ethnicities into groups labelled as ‘races’ and the belief that members of those races have characteristics inherent to their race, specifically designed to demonstrate a racial superiority or inferiority. You know, the definition.
Check my reply. He was talking about John Crawford, who was shot in a cluster-fuck at Walmart, when he was walking around with an unpackaged b-b gun off the shelf, casually swinging it around as he walked, talking on a cell phone. Someone got alarmed, called 911, and cops were told that an African American was terrifying shoppers with a real gun. The officers shot him. No evidence of racial animus. Probably an excessive reaction. Possibly the fact that Crawford was on his cellphone was a contributing factor. Definitely the mistaken dispatcher’s report was. Brandishing toy guns that look like real guns in public is a really bad idea, especially with gun-phobia rampant.
The fact that deery would think this odd incident is anything but a freak and has any larger significance is telling by itself.
“I was being brief, but it is not a definition I created. If you would like to learn more about the academic definition of racism, you can read about it here:”
Deery, for fucks sake start reading your own damn citations. That doesn’t say what you think it does. AGAIN.
deery said, “I was being brief, but it is not a definition I created. If you would like to learn more about the academic definition of racism, you can read about it here: http://sociology.about.com/od/Ask-a-Sociologist/fl/Whats-the-Difference-Between-Prejudice-and-Racism.htm“
Excuses and links that literally do not factually support your argument will get you absolutely nowhere with me. Do you want to try again to prove that which is not provable because it’s a freaking fallacy?
Game for the Day
What’s the maximum number of feet can one ignorant Progressive fit in their mouth at one time?
Pick the best possible answer from the following list
A. One
B. Two
C. Not quantifiable; Progressives always have room for one just more.
D. ∞
E. Both C & D
That left wing academics re-defined the word to justify “social justice” rhetoric and try to establish a racism double standard is classic Orwell stuff. Naturally, you endorse it. It is so ethically and intellectually disgusting, words fail me.
Eh *shrugs* Chris asked whether I believed that black people can be racist (ie bigoted/prejudiced). I said that indeed they can. He also pointed out that many people don’t believe that black people can be racist I believe that the confusion arise on his part from the two overlapping, but not necessarily synonymous definitions that are used when discussing racists and racism, especially between academics and laypeople. People often talk past each other because of that difference in definition. So I tried to briefly delineate between the two common definitions to highlight the main differences. If that is “disgusting”, so be it.
Good. Because it is disgusting. That definition you called “technical” is actually political. It is less disgusting characterized honestly. Manipulating the meanings of words so certain ideas can’t be imagined or expressed is totalitarian. Defined “technically,” only whites can be racist. Why doesn’t such a definition disgust you? How about if the “technical” definition of “honest” from some white supremist academic was “the characteristic unique to whites of valuing the truth and obeying the law”? Disgusting?
Defined “technically,” only whites can be racist. Why doesn’t such a definition disgust you?
The definition does not apply only to white people as a universal. That is a very “American-centric” way of looking at it. It can easily apply to Zimbabwe’s treatment of white farmers, for example. But it does apply to white people in the United States, because of past history, and who currently controls most of the levers of power in the economic, political, and societal fields in the United States. It is not “disgusting” to acknowledge this, and what the ramifications of that are. As I’ve stated, under the popular definition, anyone can be racist (prejudiced/bigoted). But as there are several definitions of racist/racism floating around, and people were talking past each other on the subject, it is useful to illustrate the main difference between the common definitions. Your outrage is misplaced, but if you need it, go ahead.
But you act as if all white people belong to a single power structure, when that obviously isn’t true. When pulled over by an officer and asked, “Do you know why I pulled you over?” The answer isn’t “Well, officer… Obviously you thought I was black, maybe even a woman. Well, as you can see I am indeed pasty and male, so should we call this a day then?”
No, if you want to argue that in majority white nations, the treatment of white people represents the generic baseline for interaction, and that disparate, poorer treatment of minorities is negative treatment, then there isn’t a systematic advantage to being white, there’s a systematic disadvantage to being a minority… Which seems like a quibble, but it is a material difference. The average white person is just that: The average. Not every man is a patriarch, not every white person is an oligarch. “Privilege by class” makes no sense when you include 70% of the population in a single class, especially when the class itself is as diverse as White America.
Actually there are entire fields that deal with exactly what you say Humble (that you are probably completely uninterested in, but that is another story). That’s when people talk about “intersectionality”, of which race is just one factor in a host of factors that combine to define privileges (or lack thereof) for a particular person. As we are mostly talking about race and racial definitions, I tried to stick mostly to that subject, but the other factors you bring up do not remain uncontemplated in the academic field.
I think that texagg04 should chime in here with his “let’s count the deery rationalizations” game.
deery said, “Yes, I’m the shameless one.”
Acknowledging the problem in oneself is the first step to recovery; please take the second step.
No, getting to the meeting without passing out and plowing into a strip mall is the first step.
joed68 said, “No, getting to the meeting without passing out and plowing into a strip mall is the first step.”
If you’re talking about doing that on the way to the meeting then no, that’s step number two. There’s no reason to go to the meeting if you haven’t passed step one.
If you’re talking about realizing that you’ve hit rock bottom and need the meeting after “plowing into a strip mall”, I concur.
Yup, that’s just how my mind works. 😉
deery,
You opened your mouth and inserted both feet.
I’m going to say it outright; you’re a rationalizing progressive hack, a genuine POS that rationalizes 1st degree intentional homicide of a random innocent police officers, an unintelligent red-neck prick that rationalizes the random racist beating of innocent white people just because they are white, and a man devoid of moral character that rationalizes the destruction of property just because people are pissed off.
Well deery, screw your irresponsible and immoral rationalizations.
The only person here that’s ignoring anything is you; you’re ignoring the difference between right and wrong, you think two wrongs make a right, you think the ends justify the means; hell you’re no damn better than the people you’re bitching about in your diatribe, you’re completely morally bankrupt.
God I hope you’re not a parent.
Now that you’ve got both feet in your mouth, do you care to open it up again to change socks? Have you got the balls to reply to this or are you going to figuratively run away with your progressive tail between your legs?
If that toned down version of what I originally typed is too harsh, feel free to delete it.
Zoltar, I don’t respond to emotional, substantive-free personal attacks. Have a good day.
deery said, “I don’t respond to emotional, substantive-free personal attacks.”
Fine, you’re a coward too.
deery,
How about I remove some of the parts the violated your safe place.
I’m going to say it outright; you would rationalizes 1st degree intentional homicide of a random innocent police officers, the random racist beating of innocent white people just because they are white, and destruction of property just because people are angry..
Your rationalizations are irresponsible and immoral.
The only person here that’s ignoring anything is you; you’re ignoring the difference between right and wrong, you think two wrongs make a right, you think the ends justify the means; hell you’re no damn better than the people you’re complaining about in your diatribe, you’re completely morally bankrupt.
Since you have a hard time identifying it, that was the substance, do you dare reply now?
Yup; I didn’t think you’d have the intellectual fortitude to go toe-to-toe with me.
Again; your rationalizations are irresponsible and immoral.
Be honest for once deery; you’re an anarchist, aren’t you.
Thus spake Zoltar!
You mean substance, and his reply was chock-full of substance. Funny as hell, too.
joed68,
What’s even funnier is thinking about the logic behind the fact that deery thinks his reply saying “Zoltar, I don’t respond to emotional, substantive-free personal attacks. Have a good day.” is not a response.
Think about that one over your morning coffee; when it finally sinks in, you’ll probably spit your coffee when you start laughing. Hope it doesn’t come out of your nose too, that really, really sucks. 😉
Deery said:
After your arrest, whenever you have a job application, you have to mark “Yes” where the application asks “Have you ever been arrested or convicted of a crime?” Imagine what that does to your future career prospects. Multiply that a few thousand times over the years.
No job application asks about arrests. They can only ask about about convictions and of those convictions minor traffic convictions are to be excluded.
For those that answer yes on the conviction issue, there is a place to explain the circumstances. Admittedly, just checking yes on a conviction can be unfairly exclusionary but a conviction reflects that the person was adjudicated as guilty and not simply charged.
In a few states there is legislation forbidding questions about simple arrests. In most there is no such exclusion, and many private and public companies can and do ask abut it. Thus, that is part of the “ban the box” movement.
http://www.boardmanclark.com/publications/ban-the-box-laws-impact-employer-use-of-criminal-records-information/
And if they were convicted, they were convicted. Entirely their responsibility, and part of the deterrence of convictions is that people tend to trust you less, as is completely reasonable. An employer has a right to know. The Ban the Box laws, championed by Obama, violate an employer or a renter’s right to know who they are trusting.
I’m not talking about convictions in this particular instance, just arrests. Which many employers also ask about.
Citation please? I’ve never seen that question on an application, or even heard of it asked in an interview. I’m not going to go so far as to say it never happens, but I’m exceptionally sceptical of it being anything close common.
I have seen it on applications, especially for low-level jobs.
In addition, many state laws provide some protections for applicants with a criminal past. Some states prohibit employers from asking about arrest records, at least if the arrest is no longer pending. Some states allow employers to ask about convictions only if they relate directly to the job, or require employers who consider convictions to take particular facts into account, such as how serious the crime was and whether the applicant has participated in any rehabilitation efforts. To find out whether your state has a law regarding employer use of arrest and conviction records, select it from the list below. . http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/state-laws-use-arrests-convictions-employment.html
Additionally, even if you don’t check the box, the arrest record will still show up anyway in any standard criminal background check.
Maybe you should do a few weeks of ride-alongs in some of these neighborhoods.
How odd. The DOJ was praising that LEO agency roughly a year before. Mayor took a few bows. I can find the press if you do not care to look for yourself.
Jack said, “And the rational response is to burn down businesses in the community, is that the point? When a community’s leadership rationalizes and justifies violence and destruction for any reason, but especially after an event like this, the credibility of the laments of such leadership is forfeited.”
With an illogical mentality driving criminal mobs of idiots and a multitude of respected community “leaders” rationalizing and justifying the violence, is anyone seriously dreaming that things are just going to magically fix themselves and civility will wash over the criminal mobs and they’ll just fall to their knees overcome with rational thinking and remorse for their previous actions? WAKE UP PEOPLE; these idiots actually view their criminal actions as necessary and not criminal; necessary for what, who the fuck knows. You can’t argue with violent blithering idiots engaging in acts of terror, and you can’t allow them to destroy our cities; you have to respond in force, with legal police actions, using the legal system to put the idiots inciting violence and committing violent acts behind bars.
Events like this will inspire more of the same and it will get worse.
Pleas, chat with deery. He says YOU’D riot.
Jack Marshall said, “Please, chat with deery. He says YOU’D riot.”
Maybe he’d think that I’d riot based on the way he thinks, but that’s certainly not the way I think. He don’t know me very well.
Based on his words, I believe that he would riot violently and then justify it just like he did above. I think he must think the whole world thinks like he does; but he’s dead wrong!
Oh, he wouldn’t riot, because he is rational. That’s why it’s no infuriating. Rational people rationalizing irrational conduct by others. This is the whole progressive flaw at its most grotesque.
You’re forgetting that this is Sheriff Clarke’s city.
I hate to admit nostalgia for the mostly non-violent protests and rallies against the Vietnam War. Not that some store windows weren’t broken in East Lansing, and a few unruly crowds did get tear gassed, but that was rare and as far as it went. In no small measure credit should be given to MSU’s interim president, Walter Adams, an econ professor who was popular with students and staunchly anti-war, and the local and campus police who reacted with restrain.
Ultimately, we made a difference. I am afraid that these violent happenings (really riots, not protests) will set back the cause of making police color blind and building trust with the minority communities.
By the way, I was a reserve police officer for 20 years, as well as a mental health center director, and in all modesty, one of a few recognized experts on police stress at the time. Many of the articles I wrote here were published in police magazines. http://www.oocities.org/stressline_com/police_stressline.html
Wow, Hal…what a resource, and what valuable perspective.
Looks like you and I are from the same formative era. My college, with a few bad moments, concentrated on teach-ins, student debates and campus-wide dialogues…the SDS was marginalized quickly because its self-serving demands were transparent. i resented the demonstrations and strikes disrupting my classes…still do. And my class donates less money to the school than any other.
I was in social work graduate school and was the leader of the student strike for our department (the second at MSU to strike), but we held all of our classes off campus. Michigan State was one of the school described in “Campus Wars
The Peace Movement At American State Universities in the Vietnam Era”
“At the same time that the dangerous war was being fought in the jungles of Vietnam, Campus Wars were being fought in the United States by antiwar protesters. Kenneth J. Heineman found that the campus peace campaign was first spurred at state universities rather than at the big-name colleges. His useful book examines the outside forces, like military contracts and local communities, that led to antiwar protests on campus.”
—Herbert Mitgang, The New York Times
I knew all of the real activists, the SDSers and so on, but never was friends with them — I just stayed on the fringe in my department and did my small bit based on my conscience and as it turned out some untested leadership ability.
It did have the most heady Trump-like rally experience of my life when the entire student body went on strike and I listed our demands (the usual) to a raucous, impassioned, cheering overflow-onto-the-street crowd in the 5,000 eat auditorium.
Campus Wars is actually now available free online. http://muse.jhu.edu/book/15779
Want me to email you a photo of me from those days?
https://www.change.org/p/colorado-governor-label-black-lives-matter-a-hate-group
http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=55341
The income and general prosperity gap between Whites and Blacks has actually WIDENED in recent history, reversing what was a general positive trend since abolition.
What is happening? Why are Blacks and Whites hating and blaming one another more than before, when there was positive momentum towards harmony and unity that was working? Violent incidents against Blacks by White cops are DOWN. They have been going down. They are still down. Meanwhile, Black-on-Black crime in places like Chicago is exploding. Over 400 murders this year in Chicago already, and we’re only in August. The timing of the Black Lives Matter movement, their stated motivations…it all seems off. There is no logic to it. And there is the added creepiness of the Democratic Party officially egging it all on. Here are some relevant facts:
-The chasm of well-being between Blacks and Whites correlates to segregated neighborhoods. Where Blacks and Whites live together more, Blacks are buoyed up and the gap is smaller.
-Based on everything I’ve read, Blacks adopted by White or Asian families fare better on average, on par with their adoptive parents’ race. An easy-to-guess result, since any non-racist would know that there is no purely genetic reason for the disparity between Blacks and Whites. A Black baby is just as much a blank slate of potential as a White one.
-The cities with the highest disparity between Blacks and Whites, and also the most segregated neighborhoods, trend to the Left politically. At the end of the spectrum where Blacks perform nearly as well as their White neighbors, and where Blacks and Whites intermingle more, you have more “red” cities like Salt Lake, Phoenix, and Oklahoma City.
-The most hellishly poor, crime-ridden, and segregated cities in America, Detroit and Chicago, are essentially one-party Leftist communities. These cities have wealthy, gentrified White neighborhoods, alongside horrific Black ghettos. Not unlike the ruling classes and peasants of a Statist dictatorship.
In light of all this, we can reverse the racial hatred, progress towards a more harmonious and less tense society, and eliminate the disparity in living conditions between races. We just need more adoptions and intermarrying between races, we need Black thought-leaders to stop painting Whites as oppressors, we need Blacks and Whites to start hanging out and making friends with one another, and we need lots of Blacks to vote Republican.
Yeah, not gonna happen huh. I guess we’re screwed.
You think the left is going to give up its formula for political hegemony just to benefit black Americans?
For the life of me I cannot see how any rational human being can justify rioting and the looting businesses because they feel they are owed something for being “oppressed”. What the hell did the gas station or auto parts store do to them? Does that case of Cheezits being carried out of the store address all of your complaints, or is it just a partial down payment on a never ending invoice for the injustice you perceive? Sorry I have no sympathy for anyone who had myriad opportunities to become educated in a manner that would permit them to read, write, perform arithmetic calculations, and just plain think.
No amount of funding can overcome community apathy. Especially, when apathy is the root cause of the need for funding in the first place. The community needs to recognize that if it wants things to be different then it needs to come to grips with the idea that they must take on the lion’s share of the work to enjoy a better life; it cannot be bestowed upon them. It must pool its own resources first before it requests resources from others. It must demonstrate that it is committed to being responsible for the work of changing the situation. Any one who thinks jobs and opportunities will simply emerge with more government spending in areas that suggest crime is rampant needs his/her head examined. No amount of tax abatement will overcome the cost of rebuilding a business that has been burned to the ground. It should be noted that the police did not spray paint tags all over other people’s buildings. It’s not urban art, it’s vandalism. The police did not create the need for security grates over the glass windows of shops. The police did not throw litter all over the street and dump furniture and tires wherever they pleased. More importantly, within the BCPD, the officers charged with various felonies while on the force were predominantly non-white so it not always a racial issue.
I grew up in Baltimore City. I lived there from 1956-1989. I went to Balto. City public schools (BCPS). I went to Woodbourne Jr. High and graduated from Northern High in 1974. Both schools were integrated and each had its share of bad actors be they white or black. In those days black parents wanted to keep their kids away from the “element”. I don’t think that is the case today. Today we celebrate the gangsta persona.
I was neither a star pupil nor a bad student. What I did learn from my father was that college was not something I could ask for help with and no school counselor ever suggested that I consider college. I saw the battles my older brother went through to get him to fill out the financial information on the financial aid applications. My father hated to disclose his income. Perhaps it was because he felt inferior to what others made or maybe he just did not like the idea of getting government assistance. I don’t know. I just learned not to ask about college. To this day I don’t remember either parent talking to me about college except for when I was in 8th grade and I could not pass the foreign language class which was required for college prep.
I did not go to college immediately after high school. Ironically, both my parents were Baltimore City Public School teachers for much of their lives. My mother who taught English was known as that white honkey bitch at Northern Parkway Junior High. That’s what the parents called her when she called them to discuss a student’s lack of progress. She got called that a lot. I saw the tears of frustration.
There were no good jobs for me in 1975. I started out with nothing but I worked unloading trailers for $25/day. My family moved away when my father took a job in Western MD in 1977. I had no mentor, no male role model as I entered the world of work but I knew right from wrong. There was no support group for me. Eventually, I saved enough to buy my first truck. I operated that business in the Canton section of city. I did the best I could growing the business but sold it in 1983 because I was not doing as well as I thought I should. I got out before the economy took a nose dive. Nonetheless, it was painfully apparent that despite my experience in the operating my own business I needed a degree if I was going to advance.
After graduating from a community college and then the University of Baltimore in 1987, with no debt and receiving no financial assistance except for an academic fellowship to UB, I went to work in West Baltimore to help the local business community grow and create quality shopping and employment opportunities. My job title was Merchant Organizer. A community organizer of sorts. The focus of my efforts was to get the private sector economic interests working toward a common goal. The problem that I found was that the community – both residents and commercial interests – were of the belief that the government should provide all the resources, that the community would decide how they would be distributed, and that no consequences would occur if the claimed outcome did not materialize. No one felt that they needed to invest anything. I saw little fiefdoms emerge. Community engagement really meant fighting to be a power broker. I was actually disciplined by the “Community Board” because I suggested that they consider incorporating the hired technical experts opinions into the plans they were making. I decided that this was not going to be job with any future. That community group eventually became ACORN. I think that because ACORN had the same Carrollton Ave. address when it was making news over a decade later.
The fact is that not much has changed since I went to BCPS except that the idea that everybody else is to blame for whatever hardship they might endure is much more entrenched. If the African American community is frustrated by the treatment they feel they are getting from those who are employed to enforce the laws, perhaps it is because the police are frustrated by the communities that they serve. I am reminded of the “Don’t Snitch” programs which gained national exposure in Baltimore. When I had my delivery business, my trucks were robbed several times in broad daylight around the city yet no one saw any thing – imagine that.
We have spent trillions of dollars on anti-poverty programs. We have made available numerous academic support programs for what are termed special populations under Title IX funding. Special populations are students who identify as a special class with some special needs; typically they are single mothers, minorities, students where English is not their first language, etc. Yet, the problems and resentment are rising.
Poverty rates are still climbing. We have children in Head Start who are the grand kids of other Head Start kids from years ago. Per pupil spending in Baltimore City is second only to Worcester County and it should be noted that most of Worcester County’s funding is local compared to less than 25% of BCPS coming from local tax revenues. BCPS spends 15% more than its neighbor in Baltimore County and gets much less in terms of outcomes. You cannot argue that student performance is related to the wealth of the community when the wealthiest communities spend less per pupil. In BCPS the 2016 average spending per pupil is $16,713. Consider an average class of 25 students – that’s nearly $425,000 per class unit annually. Even if we assume that average teacher compensation is $100K /year where is the rest of the money going? For $325,000/ year I can buy a lot of ancillary materials to aid instruction, maintain safe learning conducive buildings, and fund new school construction. Who are the stewards of the funds of BCPS? I don’t want to hear about poor public school funding from the district that is fourth in the nation in spending. The argument that inner city kids don’t have educated parents that can help them achieve is a cop out. Every kid I see has a smart phone provided for them under universal access fees or some other source. There are plenty of online resources and public libraries available at no cost. l would also predict that many of their grandparents went to school with me and got the same education I did. What their grandparents did for their children is debatable but that has no bearing on resource allocation decisions. The days of blacks getting an inferior education because of segregation are long past. Today, any inferior education of African Americans must be laid directly at the feet of the school systems, the communities in which they operate, students who do not value academic rigor and their parents who instill apathy into those kids. Money cannot fix ignorance or stupidity. Frederick Douglas educated himself in spite of real discrimination and dangerous racism.
I want to know what individuals in the communities are going to do to help themselves to escape the horrors of ghetto life. No one is condemned to such a life, it is by choice that one remains an uneducated peasant bound to serve their political kings and queens for mere subsistence. Perhaps it is time for a new paradigm with respect to government programs. We should redirect funding to communities that can document self help programs that reduce the number of people in poverty or show increases in median incomes. Reward schools systems which can demonstrate real increases in attendance rates, college admissions etc. Make college admissions tougher. Forget free college for everyone but provide scholarships for academically deserving students. Financial need is not a predictor of student success. If they prove themselves worthy in public schools help them progress but don’t financially reward those who squander the first opportunity at a free education. Even if funding is tied to something as simple as keeping the area in front of one’s home neat and orderly could create the basis for an economic renaissance in those areas.
Why not create a program in which CDBG funds are reduced with increases shootings or other violent crimes. Make everyone accountable for getting the criminals off the street. When funding for that new community center for at risk kids is jeopardized by the level of shootings and drug sales in the area maybe the community might just get involved. School funding should gradually become tied to real student achievement. If student achievement gaps help administrators acquire more funding then it stands to reason that they don’t want the problem to go away. If funding is tied to success then the incentives are changed. Our current system is upside down. It’s like getting paid off to throw the game so someone else gets a big payday.
In short, stop reinforcing the behaviors and conditions that helps get them more funding and start rewarding those communities that actually are making progress on their own. The current methods are not working and may be making things worse. Furthermore, it would force race baiters to adopt more positive leadership practices.
Thanks, Chris. Very enlightening, and a comment of the day.
So basically a very long-winded way of saying that if police routinely violate a community’s Constitutional rights on a wholesale basis they deserve it, with a “look, unwed mothers, pull up your pants you thugs!” thrown in for good measure? Ok.
deery said, “So basically a very long-winded way of saying that if police routinely violate a community’s Constitutional rights on a wholesale basis they deserve it, with a “look, unwed mothers, pull up your pants you thugs!” thrown in for good measure? Ok.”
How very obtuse of you. It comes as absolutely no surprise that that’s the only thing your twisted mind got out of that comment.
What is your real purpose in these comment threads deery?
I read this, and instantly (like other commenters) thought, “damn…Comment of the Day is there ever was one!”. You respond by intentionally misunderstanding the post, boiling it down to a few cheap insults, to make it easily dismissible. You must be proud.
Also, I will reply here to your earlier reply to me, from a different string of posts, b/c it was getting to difficult to directly reply above:
Your earlier reply was: “You realize you are just one data point among millions, correct? People are not making up the mass arrests”
My original question/point wasn’t that people were making up arrests; I welcome you to find anything that I have ever said on Ethics Alarms that even approaches that sentiment.
My very clear questions were: “Why have I been excluded from this? Is my skin not black enough? Can the police detect in advance that my grammar isn’t broken, and I likely know my rights better than the average black, so I’m left alone?”
The implication being, most progressives make the argument that these arrests happen solely, SOLELY, on the basis of skin color alone. If that is the case, how am I (and my brother, and my sister-in-law, and my uncle, and handful of cousins and nieces, all of whom live in, or work in Baltimore City…so, no, not just a lone data point) somehow able to avoid the fate that these other blacks face, when we share the EXACT SAME SKIN COLOR? B/c, as I understand it, progressives don’t believe that belief systems passed on my parents, understanding of right/wrong, upbringing, personal decision making, etc, none of that changes whether or not I have a negative interaction with police…just skin color. I’m confused as to why I, and my kin, somehow end up as the exceptions….
And with regards to the “technical definition” of racism…you realize that when you and likeminded people define it the way that you do, as something that requires the lack of oppression to engage in (oppression that I have somehow never felt the weight of, but whatever…we’ve already established that my blackness somehow is the exception), that you, as a non-black person*, are telling me, a black person, what I can and cannot do? That you, and likeminded people, are putting limits on the definition of natural human feelings and emotions that I have, that EVERYONE has, and using those narrow definitions to separate what I feel, from what white people feel? That you are scapegoating, rationalizing, and infantilizing my natural emotions, simply because you don’t want to admit that I, and other blacks, have the potential to be just as evil as every other racist white person out there? Thanks for the “help”.
(*-I assume you are non-black, because you ave never given me reason to think otherwise. If I am incorrect, I apologize)
Deery, please stop rationalizing away illegal, self-destructing behavior (“Though what does a community do when they feel they are the prey of their government, with no rights?”), behavior that I am fairly certain you would NEVER accept from yourself, or from a child of yours. Stop contributing to the redefining of words, so as to lessen the the culpability of bad blacks who choose to act as bad as bad whites. Too many people think that that kind of “help” is beneficial, when in reality, it pushes us further away from an actual bridging of the racial gap.
Do the words of Frederick Douglass mean nothing to you?
“What shall be done with (slaves)? Our answer is, do nothing with them; mind your business, and let them mind theirs. Your doing with them is their greatest misfortune. They have been undone by your doings, and all they now ask, and really have need of at your hands, is just to let them alone….
Let us stand upon our own legs, work with our own hands, and eat bread in the sweat of our own brows. When you, our white fellowcountrymen, have attempted to do anything for us, it has generally been to deprive us of some right, power or privilege which you yourself would die before you would submit to have taken from you…
(like patronizingly minimizing my capability for evil feelings on par with any white person)
Deal justly with him. He is a human being, capable of judging between good and evil, right and wrong, liberty and slavery, and is as much a subject of law as any other man; therefore, deal justly with him. He is, like other men, sensible of the motives of reward and punishment. Give him wages for his work, and let hunger pinch him if he don’t work. He knows the difference between fullness and famine, plenty and scarcity.”
My original question/point wasn’t that people were making up arrests; I welcome you to find anything that I have ever said on Ethics Alarms that even approaches that sentiment.
My very clear questions were: “Why have I been excluded from this? Is my skin not black enough? Can the police detect in advance that my grammar isn’t broken, and I likely know my rights better than the average black, so I’m left alone?”
The implication being, most progressives make the argument that these arrests happen solely, SOLELY, on the basis of skin color alone. If that is the case, how am I (and my brother, and my sister-in-law, and my uncle, and handful of cousins and nieces, all of whom live in, or work in Baltimore City…so, no, not just a lone data point) somehow able to avoid the fate that these other blacks face, when we share the EXACT SAME SKIN COLOR? B/c, as I understand it, progressives don’t believe that belief systems passed on my parents, understanding of right/wrong, upbringing, personal decision making, etc, none of that changes whether or not I have a negative interaction with police…just skin color. I’m confused as to why I, and my kin, somehow end up as the exceptions….
The plural of anecdote still isn’t data.
If you don’t believe that people are making up mass arrest, is your point that all those thousands of people who the Baltimore Police has already admitted and been documented that they arrested randomly somehow got what was coming to them, so violating people’s constitutional rights is then ok?
Or is it because you speak Standard English, and dress in a white societally-approved way that you are the “Exceptional Negro” and thus people who do not do these things deserve to have their constitutional rights violated? Or why you and people you know in particular haven’t had your rights violated? As I’ve already answered upthread, mostly luck. What did Castile do to deserve to be shot and killed? He did everything he was supposed to do at a traffic stop. He was unlucky. You were not.
I don’t think anyone is arguing (or at least I am not) that every single black person in America must have their rights violated at every single encounter with the police. Castile was stopped by the police 52(!) times before his 53rd time proved fatal. He might have said everything you just said before the last time.
Police officers, as a whole, like many other members of society placed in authority, understand full well that there are classes of people who cannot be touched without extreme caution and evidence, and other groups who society does not care about except in extreme cases, and it is those people that officers who feel so inclined can exercise whatever authority they feel against. If you have ran into nice officers who choose not to mess with you, I’m not sure what you want me to say. Congratulations?
But the data is far too voluminous to think that police abuse does not happen disproportionately (note, not exclusively and not invariably) to the black community.
Fabulous comment and worthy of further discussion as a Comment of the Day!
After reading through that entire comment three times, something struck me; it appears that Paul Ryan initiative to openly talk about tough subjects surrounding the failings over the years addressing poverty in the document A Better Way is definitely changing how we talk and maybe what we eventually do about poverty.
Maybe some of what’s in the document says will offend some people or be twisted into anti-Ryan propaganda like they’ve done before, but it appears that it just might have started the discussion, and that was one of its main goals; as it says in the first sentence of the last paragraph of the document, “This is the beginning of a conversation”, let’s all hope the conversation can continue.
That’s not meant to change the discussion, just a reflection on the similarities.
Should this be a part of that conversation?
“Milwaukee Mayor (Tom Barrett) To Black Rioters- ‘Sylville Smith Had a Gun In His Hand, I Saw the Footage.’ ”
Police Chief Edward Flynn declined to name the shooting officer, but confirmed he is Black. (deal-breaker?)
Seventeen arrested overnight (08/14/2016), ALL had priors.
Cue the hand-wringing!
The initial reports I read were also that the officer that shot the suspect was also African American.
Thus far left unsaid, what if the shooting officer had been White?
Would the rioting, looting, destruction of private/public property, & mayhem…er…the social justice-seeking attempt to redress economic, societal, and political marginalization and inequity have been less, been about the same, or been far greater?
What bothers me about this situation is that in other BLM uprisings, there were accusations of certain organisations importing rioters from outside to drum up the protests… Which at the very least was possible because of the amount of time between stimulus and effect…. In THIS case the riots happened within an hour of the shooting, which means that at the very least the grassroots of this riot was actually home grown. I think this represents a radicalisation of Black America, and I wonder how different the response would have been had this happened in other areas of the country.
Has there been any racial improvement and acceptance over the years?
In 1956 I was in Charleston, South Carolina for several months while my father opened a business extension in the south. The first time I took a public bus I sat in the curved seats in the very back and the driver suddenly stopped a virtually empty bus.
I was told that is where the “Nigra’s sit.” So naturally I asked what a Nigra was. I got a quick lesson that drifted from “colored” to nigger.” After all, I was 12-years-old from a pure White community.
My father had scrap from his operations and had connected with a local Black man who was both wealthy and in need of scrap so we paid a visit to his house. Why his house? Going to ours was a risk not worth taking and we were far safer in the Black neighborhood.
That was just two of several such incidents that provided me with a completely new perspective of the world and my own sheltered existence. Flash forward to Atlanta in the late 1960s.
The racial divided was incredible – I cannot perceive of a biracial couple having anything but grief. Atlanta was about as cosmopolitan as any city in the South, but the real issue was it was not isolated to the South. The sophistication of racism was far different in the North and certainly not as overt.
So much for the past.
A far different world exists in Atlanta today and I bear witness to it and it has also extended to the North and the rest of the country so that is one aspect where change has been significant and in my lifetime. There is far less concern over color – especially among Millenials.
Many have posted on the disparity between various racial groups and those are certainly beyond dispute. To simply it most has focused on Black and White for the comparison. Some of my own observations.
Patrick Moynihan was correct.
Police racial profiling exists and it is not isolated to White officers.
Throwing money has not solved the problem.
MLK would be appalled by the staged discord.
Far too many Black leaders are professional Blacks and not Black professionals.
Politicians – most notably the Democrats – feed off the discord like sharks to a bloody fish.
White’s may stage a Thermidorian Reaction – I see some of that with Trump.
The last eight years have been a step back…maybe two steps or more.
Thanks, Rick. You and Chris almost take the foul taste out of my mouth left by Deery’s disgusting display of unrealized bias gone to racism (praise the general; despise the particular).