I don't know about this particular case, but I have seen that sort of undercover agitating in protests loads of times, most recently in London couple of years ago, but also in the Ukraine and Turkey, Egypt, Libya, there were loads of reports by people who were already there, some of whom I know personally. It's a tried and tested method of demonising the opposition in the eyes of the public, justifying losses of freedoms, militarisation, police state and similar, and ultimately, and the more it is used, the more dictatorial the government is, in my experience.
My father is an expert on wrongfully convicted blacks in the US, so I can tell you that it's shocking to hear the stories that are from the 21st century. There are people who claim the US is past racism, but when you look at the statistics, it is blatantly obvious that our "justice" is not.
That's because when an innocent white person gets shot, you don't see a bunch of white people protesting, Alan Dershowitz doesn't show up to make announcements, and it isn't all over every channel on television. There is no equality in the media when it comes to incidents like these. It makes things seem so off kilter. There are a lot of poor white people that aren't treated fairly in the criminal justice system as well.
I just can't believe any government would do that... I mean, I believe it, it's just.. crazy. It's their job to protect the country, not encourage anger so they can have more control.. Part of me believes that the DHS is in Ferguson, antagonizing.. But the other part of me just can't wrap my head about it.
I'm curious about exactly what you mean that your father is an expert. How so? Given that, I'm kind of surprised that you're shocked to hear that these stories are current. Ummm --- I don't doubt that there are many poor whites who are mistreated by the justice system, but there are WAY more minorities (especially blacks and latinos) who are mistreated and against whom undue violence are committed by the police. White privilege really comes into play on this issue, and there are countless stories of black men who have been mistreated by the police, even when they have been with white people (see a previous post in this thread). Do you have an example of an unarmed white person who was killed by the police and there was no outcry? I note that most of the posters in this thread are (I believe) white. I'm curious what some of our black members think about this issue.
Stories easily get mixed up but the police chief said the cigarillos were found at the scene and the video shows Johnson putting the pack that Brown handed him on the counter, while Brown leaves with the carton in his hand. The conspiracy theories are rampant and unfortunate because they take away from the actual problems. Now it's being brought up that Johnson has an outstanding warrant http://www.wnd.com/2014/08/ferguson-shooting-witness-wanted-in-2011-case/#Kil4OmYWIlfAwWsX.99 From the link: It's not even a failure to appear. None of these revelations about these two young men appear to be revelations to investigators. At most you have a couple petty crimes being presented as evidence these were young black thugs. It's like Travon Martin having a picture of himself with a gun and being caught with pot at school. Hell, GW Bush and Dick Cheney had drunk driving arrests. Bush probably used cocaine and Clinton most likely inhaled. You can find these kinds of petty records on half the country but somehow black kids with minor arrest records are scary black thugs. And if they happen to be shot, the petty arrest records are proof they were violent felons. I saw the same thing brought up around the Net with Trayvon Martin. Minor things kids do, when it's a white kid, it was youthful indiscretion (Dick Cheney's excuse). When it's a black kid, especially one that has just been shot by a white cop or white 'neighborhood-watch' vigilante it's evidence they were gang-bangers, violent thugs, armed and dangerous. It's no wonder to me that the parents and neighbors in that community think the cops are purposefully portraying their children as dangerous criminals. In the minimart video Brown shoves the store clerk. No injury, no fist pounding, not even knocking him over. But that little shove earns Brown the label of dangerous felon. Yes, it was theft, it was technically a strong-arm robbery because of that little shove. But for crying out loud it doesn't make Brown a dangerous thug. You'd never know that reading the way some people perceive the events. That little shove and petty theft absolves the outrageous actions of a cop and condemns an 18 yr old to death for those petty crimes. And the people who perceive Brown as some scary black thug are completely unaware of their underlying racists premises.
Ha, you totally missed the point. If there is no outcry and it doesn't receive national coverage, how can I give you an example? I live in an area full of poor white people and abuse to them by cops happens ALL the time. I'm sure other people that live in areas like I do will tell you the same thing.
No Dershowitz is too busy trying to get liberal college professors with tenure drummed out. Trying to make this a tu quoque ignores all the issues with the School to Prison Pipeline. It's not that whites are never wronged. But it's also not that all would be equal if only the media didn't focus on these cases. Yes, certain things get more press. Missing white kids and young women get more media attention than missing black kids and young women. Even when the press tries to change with a couple token cases it's not long before they fall back into their old patterns. But let's be honest here, how many videos of cops beating white guys, how many killings by cops of unarmed white kids and adults don't get coverage? They do. Cops killing unarmed kids is always news worthy. If it doesn't become the big deal with riots and all it's because it isn't a systematic problem the way it is within the black community.
If you had 100 birds around your house and you noticed that 14 of them were responsible for over half the shit on your car, would you not be more likely to shoo those 14 birds away?
Using your logic it's easy to prove that the real problem here is cop on giraffe crime. But there's a conspiracy to hide it. That's why you never hear about cops beating up giraffes.
The thing is, lack of proof is not proof -- do you know of anyone who was beaten to death or shot while unarmed and it received no coverage? General mistreatment and harassment is terrible, yes. But being executed by the police in an official capacity is far worse.
I knew I shouldn't have delved into this issue because it is always the same thing. "This always happens to black people, and it always will until something changes." Well the fact is, as long as people live in the past, and not in the present, things aren't going to change. This is especially true if we have to relive the past every time their is a relapse. Let's be honest profiling and be mistreated by cops happens a lot more than you think, and isn't just because of race. I one time posted my own encounter with a cop that could have turned ugly that was just over a headlight being out. The cop even called for back up! Why was I treated like shit by the cop? Because I drove a junker car at the time and pulled into my apartment complex that was high end. He thought I was trying to flee from him. I called him out on it, and flat out told him he was profiling me because of my car. If I wouldn't have kept a cool head he was going to arrest me, and who knows what would have happened. So point is, this isn't the 1800's with slavery, the 60's with segregation, or any other time with racism. This is a new millennium and there are going to be instances like this because people aren't perfect, but for things to keep progressing we need to leave the past in the past and keep working on the future.
No my logic is that mistreatment by cops is a crime whether the person is black, white, Latino, giraffe, piranha, or Klingon.
Yes, because that is what is happening in this country. As for the rest, I don't disagree. I've had several encounters with police who were assholes. (Most cops are not.) But it is not systemic.
Dude, you are talking to an old hippie. We revived the word, pig. Now once I left LA, I discovered not all police were pigs. And I have the utmost respect for most police now. But if you think I am only bothered when an out of control cop injures a black person, that's just silly. My POV is the police don't do enough to train officers how to control their tempers and their power tripping. I get it there is a benefit in training an officer how to assert control, but not enough is then done to help them discriminate when asserting control is necessary and when it is the wrong approach. This cop should have politely asked these two to move to the sidewalk. I find it hard to believe he went from reasonable cop to shooting a fleeing kid just like that. And given how the police responded to the initial rioting, it seems there was an existing relationship of disrespect between the police and the citizens of this suburb. So it appears to me the cop started off confrontational and it spiraled out of control.
I don't disagree with this statement at all. I could add that there could also have been quite a bit of anxiety (fear?) in entering this neighborhood that influenced his actions as well.
While we're bringing up the race issue, here's a piece of information you all might find interesting: When Nelson Mandela came to the United States and spoke about apartheid, he was quoted as saying, "To be black in South Africa means to have a prison record." we were outraged as a nation and took action. We did however, seem to miss the fact that there are more black folks in prison in the United States in every demographic than South Africa has ever had in the history of that country. And then there's an old joke from Canada... Where in Canada do First Nation peoples outnumber whites? Answer: Prisons. My wife and I are Native American...as a matter of fact, Sherman Alexie is our first cousin. If you read of my recent encounter with the police up thread a bit, I've no doubt that I was seen as 'just another drunk Indian' rather than someone in a life or death crisis. We are all human, including our foibles and the propensity to generalize and categorize people. It has been my observation that power changes people. We are coming along though. In many states, correctional officers are rotated out of max security or special management units regularly because the powers that be have finally acknowledged that there is a propensity to become sadistic in such powerful roles. Perhaps the time will come when we see that this propensity is not limited to just these folks.
No, that's because the statistics bear the results. Blacks are more likely to face extreme amount of violence by the police, are more likely to be found guilty, and are more likely to receive longer sentences even when holding constant geography, accused crime, socioeconomic status, age, and any other potentially confounding variable. Anecdotes are extremely unreliable. I don't believe this because of the Ferguson incident or because of the Zimmerman incident, but because the statistics show it over an extremely large sample size. I do agree that poor people are treated worse, no doubt. But blacks are still treated worse even when you control for other factors such as socioeconomic conditions (it's not just that blacks are more represented among the poor). My father is a professor who teaches criminal justice and some sociology. He's written several books on wrongfully convicted people, including one specifically about wrongfully convicted blacks. I meant that I was surprised when my father first taught me about the racial disparities in justice years ago, not that I was surprised about the recent events.
Without a doubt. I think very few people, if any, would disagree. The problem is that it happens at a much greater frequency when the person is black or Latino. Black people experience this no matter what their socioeconomic status -- no matter how nicely they're dressed, no matter how nice the car they drive, no matter what part of town they're driving through. My husband worked with a black man who has a PhD and an MBA, and works for a major company. But he's still frequently stopped by the police in several towns near us -- towns where none of us who were white had ever been stopped. Minorities experience much more harassment -- more instances of subtle harassment, and the harassment is much quicker to escalate than if the person is white.
I lived in Ferguson for ten years before moving to the DC area in 2011. I still own a house there (we've turned it into a rental property because we couldn't sell it for what we owed.) I never felt unsafe there, but I'm white. (I find it laughable that some people who've never been there describe the area as one of the most dangerous areas in the U.S.) I just hope for everyone who lives there, that this doesn't drive everyone away. One positive, this morning the Farmer's Market: http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/2014/08/citizens_find_fellowship_at_ferguson_farmers_market.php By the way, Ferguson is both a suburb of St. Louis and an incorporated City with it's own police force. There are around 90 Cities within St. Louis County.
The author makes a pretty tenuous assumption in deciding that having blacks as mayors or city council members should make a difference in the treatment of blacks. First off, that assumes that they have the absolute power to make change, which the author provides absolutely no evidence for. Secondly, that assumes that black leaders are necessarily looking out for other blacks in their community, which the author also provides no evidence for. I would imagine that race support would depend heavily on the voting spread in the electorate, but it doesn't matter because I have as much evidence supporting this as he does (none). Basically, I don't see this evidence as showing what it purports to show. There are many, many other studies that suggest blacks are discriminated against by police, though. For starters, there is strong evidence that black males are more likely to have their car stopped than white males when controlling for potentially confounding variables. Here are four corroborating studies: Color of Driver is Key to Stops in I-95 Videos by J. Brazil in 1992; Statistics Show Pattern of Discrimination by H. Curtis in 1992; Racial Profiling was the Routine, New Jersey Finds by D. Kocieniewski in 2000; and The Construction and Reinforcement of Myths of Race and Crime by M. Robinson in 2000. There is also evidence that police stop blacks on the street more often than whites (The New York City Police Department's Stop and Frisk Practices by E. Spitzer in 1999) despite the fact that blacks that have been stopped are less likely to have contraband than whites that have been stopped (The Reality of Racial Disparity in Criminal Justice: The Significance of Data Collection by D. Harris in 2003). Other books also show that blacks are disproportionately found among the wrongfully convicted, including In Spite of Innocence by M. Radelet in 1992; Wrongly Convicted by S. Westervelt in 2001; Race for Your Life by T. Harmon in 2004; and Exonerations in the United States 1989 through 2003 by S. Gross in 2005. The largest reasons given for these differences is eye witness misidentification (the "Own Race Bias") and prejudice by police and prosecutors. There is also evidence that convictions differ between the races even while accounting for confounding variables from Racial Disproportionality of US Prison Populations Revisited by A. Blumstein in 1993 and The Malign Effects of Drug and Crime Control Policies on Black Americans by M. Tonry in 2008. In fact, Tonry found that 39% of the conviction differences between the races cannot be explained by economic class, criminal activity, and other confounding variables.
