Ongoing U.S Police Brutality and Corruption Discussion Thread

Protests also help people organize. Not sure why shakey, others feel the need to constantly argue with history on this one.

Street protests in the u.s. haven't significantly impacted policy in over 40 years. Centers of powrr have hyper-specific polling data now, protests don't meaningfully scare them as an indicator of voting payterns, so they just dgaf.

I'm not saying don't protest - I do it and it has some personal value to the participants and sympathizers, but its not an effective tool for directing policy.

no one thinks that a protest is going to directly change policy

Most efforts at substantive reform fail, regardless of method.

Reliance on one method alone is likely to increase the chances of failure, especially in the absence of well-organized efforts and strategy.

That's hardly a condemnation of any one method, street protests included; it's just a reminder of how difficult change is.

To what extent is there sympathy with the idea that admissions of privilege, vocal solidarity and participation in protest from white people are inappropriate at the moment? I can see how the CrimingWhileWhite hashtag might strike many as crass but there seems to be a deeper feeling from a lot of the people I follow on Twitter that white Americans should disengage from the conversation and spend that time signal boosting the voices of those more directly affected.

^how i feel, being a body/node in solidarity.

I generally feel kind of :/ about any solidarity expression that seems to move the focus to the speaker's whiteness/maleness/whatever.

*as a white male

There's just always a little tinge of "BTW I AM ONE OF THE GOOD ONES" to it.

its not an effective tool for directing policy.

― Οὖτις, Thursday, December 4, 2014 4:44 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i can think of 4 million undocumented people who might disagree. protest doesn't set policy. it can push it.

To what extent is there sympathy with the idea that admissions of privilege, vocal solidarity and participation in protest from white people are inappropriate at the moment? I can see how the CrimingWhileWhite hashtag might strike many as crass but there seems to be a deeper feeling from a lot of the people I follow on Twitter that white Americans should disengage from the conversation and spend that time signal boosting the voices of those more directly affected.

― Wristy Hurlington (ShariVari), Thursday, December 4, 2014 6:33 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

local friend wrote this recently

http://wellexaminedlife.com/2014/11/26/dear-white-people-ferguson-protests-are-a-wake-not-a-pep-rally/

This is why I went to the White House after the announcement. I was hoping to be surrounded by my fellow Black people, to yell, to scream, to cheer, and to sing. I wanted to gather my people around me and boldly assert my humanity to the world. Yet that’s not what I found. What I found was a mostly white crowd of college-age liberals chanting, hugging, and taking selfies with their overly-dressed up roommates. There was energy, an excitement in the air that I couldn’t share. Being surrounded by a group of young white people alternating between hugging friends who had joined them and shouting angrily at the cops (many of whom were Black) was not validating my humanity.

this is a little pat, but afaic ours is not to speak & lead, ours is just to RT & read

OTM

Hoos otm

love that

To what extent is there sympathy with the idea that admissions of privilege, vocal solidarity and participation in protest from white people are inappropriate at the moment? I can see how the CrimingWhileWhite hashtag might strike many as crass but there seems to be a deeper feeling from a lot of the people I follow on Twitter that white Americans should disengage from the conversation and spend that time signal boosting the voices of those more directly affected.

"Vocal solidarity and participation in protest from white people" is good, it just has to be done with some mindfulness.

If we start wanting to silence people because they're speaking in solidarity with a group other than their own, we're fucked.

In any case there's a bigger group to which we all belong, which is the human race.

I think...there's...a push-pull between that ethos and "fighting racism is everyone's problem"/the necessity of white ppl perceiving racism and doing anything about it in their own lives & communities.

I lean slightly toward thinking that protests are not (usually?) meant to be a "safe space." If you were looking for a healing place of only similarly intersectional/marginalized people like yourself...I just don't think that's what direct actions are? Likewise organizing groups should be up front about who they're looking to include--some groups will hold their identity & membership to PoC, for instance.

I hate the Criming while wite shit and stuff, but the road to getting conscious is not nec pretty all along the way. I don't really know what to do or say (if anything) about this.

I got xp'ed along the way. "that ethos" = "ours is not to speak & lead, ours is just to RT & read"

Like, there's a very strong feeling that "white silence = white consent" but at the same time there are PoC speaking strongly against white expressions of "solidarity" or whatever on soc med. Well...?

xxxp I don't think that's what's being argued here, a good analogy might be Take Back The Night protests where men are asked to march behind the women b/c it's not about the men

It's white people's job to convince other white people to listen to PoC.

Yeah, sure. But not all white people wake up in the same way, taking the same steps. I don't have, like, a "final word" on how they should progress, apart from finding a lot of it personally distasteful, but that's looking back with a lens that I have learned to apply.

Mostly I wish white ppl who are just learning didn't inflict their progress on PoC in the meantime--but you can't get to ALL of them.

There's just always a little tinge of "BTW I AM ONE OF THE GOOD ONES" to it.

Yeah that's true, but then I want to say, so what ? Does that matter, if it's accompanied by other motivations? Is it even avoidable, given human nature? And doesn't this impulse (to signal "I'm one of the good ones") overlap with something bigger, which is the desire to mark for history the fact that, in the face of a certain injustice, some in that society were willing to protest?

I don't know, I think we on the left have this tendency to want to do things just right, with complete purity, and without pissing anybody off (who we might not want to piss off). It becomes silly at a certain point. So a bunch of white college kids were a little too giddy at a rally. Fine. They should be more mindful. Absolutely. I'd still rather they be there than not!!

the motivation is fine, it's the focus that's the problem imo. Focus on black lives mattering, not on "hey I'm white and I get away with shit, lol"

#CrimingWhileWhite was fine when it was about "I did this thing that was recently in the news as a capital offense for a black man and I was barely even reprimanded over it"; the people who think it's funny are precisely the problem. Recognizing that there are everyday things that you get away with that someone darker than you may not be able to do without consequence is an important part of recognizing racism.

Ok I agree re focus. Also I don't know much about this #Criming phenomenon so my comments may be off the mark wrt that. I'm addressing the broader notion that whites should disengage and refrain from expressions of solidarity.

It's white people's job to convince other white people to listen to PoC.

― Οὖτις, Thursday, December 4, 2014 8:11 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^ This, I think. Educate yourself, read, listen, RT, spread what PoC are saying on the matter. Try and give them a stage, to let them be heard, in whatever small way is within your capabilities.

Because for every street protest there's a congress or summit organized - all with good intentions, no doubt - discussing integration, immigration, racism or police violence. But the panels are still mostly 100% white (and male). That needs to change first I think. All it says - again, it might be out of the best intentions - is white people decide whether we listen to PoC or not. Meaning white people don't take PoC seriously still.

xp yeah fair enough, I guess I just generally feel like there's been a little too much navel-gazing by lefty white people ever since "check your privilege" became a phrase. That said, hearing about the Garner case at work made me very suddenly conscious of things like being in an office building with security turnstiles, living in a neighborhood where police don't harass people, and yeah, being a parent who will probably never have to give my children "the talk" or otherwise worry about them having run-ins with the police in which the police are the antagonizers. I am definitely pro self-awareness about all of this, I just don't like seeing people get stuck on it.

IO to be clear I don't think Aaron showed up to the White House looking for direct action--i think he went to be outraged and in pain, and he found himself surrounded by people more interested in another round of Yell At The Building than sharing in or standing with his suffering.

Friend from London mentioned the same TBTN parallel saying that men were asked to start having separate marches there--to make the point "maybe white people should be having separate solidarity marches," which I'm not sure I agree with.

yeah I don't think that's exactly a parallel

I think our campus TBTN had a rally at the beginning or end that men could attend(I remember attending) but the march was all female, and also speakers were all female.

Friend from London mentioned the same TBTN parallel saying that men were asked to start having separate marches there--to make the point "maybe white people should be having separate solidarity marches," which I'm not sure I agree with.

Why did your friend think this might be a good idea? Did he explain ?

at one of NYC's protests in the wake of the Wilson non-indictment, there was a massive crowd pushing through the streets, chanting, holding signs, stopping traffic, blocking intersections, many of the cars honking in support. many of the people were white, and on two different occasions i heard a PoC say something like "wow, look at all these white people" and it made me wonder if my presence was a positive thing. i do think that, on balance, it was good that we were there. i guess the question than becomes what is acceptable behavior for white people at these events.

It's white people's job to convince other white people to listen to PoC.

― Οὖτις, Thursday, December 4, 2014 8:11 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^ This, I think. Educate yourself, read, listen, RT, spread what PoC are saying on the matter. Try and give them a stage, to let them be heard, in whatever small way is within your capabilities.

and that's where it gets murky for me. convince other white people to listen to PoC, of course! but sometimes just retweeting something without comment doesn't really do much, and adding your own take on it makes it more personal and prompt more of a response. i realize that can come off as white people trying to dominate the conversation and make it about them but the intent (at least for me) is just to personalize it. i tend to respond to other people's social media content (i just puked it my mouth, sorry) more when they've added something of their own to it rather than just posting a link, and i don't think i'm alone in that.

How is "personalizing" something distinct from making it about yourself?

This morning I had to go into work and teach my class, which is 100% PoC and today was 100% female and prepare myself to figure out
-- whether I should bring this up if they don't
-- whether I should spend time talking about it rather than preparing for the final exam (this was the last class before the exam)
-- whether I should have them write about it (it's a pre-composition class) and how to justify this extra work if they do not all feel compelled to express themselves
-- what I should say if they ask me what i think
-- how to explain the lack of justice in this country to the one student who asked me for help preparing for her citizenship test

I mean, it was a lot. And I read the room and found that they wanted to prepare for the exam and no one brought up the police, killing, racism, murder, choking or anything related to these cases.
It's a tough line to walk, knowing what to do/say and to whom and how -- there can't really be any rules or guidelines that apply to everyone, so the best I feel like we can hope for is to give people who want to talk about it the opportunity to have their voice heard, and to let the people who need to stew it over or who would prefer not to say anything have the p & q required to come to their own conclusions.

Being told to do this or that or read or lead or speak or shut up -- it's all kind of pointless when you realize how many different perspectives there are. If the conversation slowed down a little bit, maybe we could all make it through the long haul required to address some of these injustices and glaring issues with the way we conduct law enforcement and justice in the USA. I dunno.

How is "personalizing" something distinct from making it about yourself?

Adding a few words of one's own to supplement a link, announcement, or quote does not automatically make your post become something "about yourself". It does not necessarily shift the focus away from the matter at hand. Saying "I'm going to this rally, who else wants to join?" turns a mere posting into an invitation.

It kind of turns it into an invitation to hang out with you!

xposts

'personalize' isn't the right word. i guess i just mean adding something to a link rather than just posting the link without any comment. for example, over on the mike brown thread milton just posted:

http://wellexaminedlife.com/2014/11/26/dear-white-people-ferguson-protests-are-a-wake-not-a-pep-rally/

almost quoted parts of this, but the whole thing really needs to be read in context because it's all pretty complicated and this struck me as not even being a paragraph longer than it needs to be, especially the last paragraph

that's something beyond just a link, but it's not transforming it into something that's all about him. and his added words made me want to read it (and it's a great article which has convinced me that i need to keep my mouth shut at rallies from now on). anyway, all of this is probably a strawman because i realize that most people aren't saying that white people shouldn't post a few words to explain a link, but since there was some chatter upthread about just retweeting and recommending "just to RT & read", i thought i'd address that. i'm probably taking "just to RT & read" WAY too literally, though!

I mean, is there a net good there? Probably, and this isn't really worth a protracted fight, but the strategy here is to use yourself as a proxy/conduit to interest others in this political cause and I don't see how you can actually do that without making it about yourself. I spent an entire day on Facebook very pointedly making the Ferguson situation about myself in an attempt to put my face on the faceless people that the conservatives in my feed were reacting against and it was mostly successful, given the feedback I received.

xp: ha okay, I get where you're coming from; I don't know how I'd describe that tbh

It kind of turns it into an invitation to hang out with you!

Um sure, but much more: to hang out with you and a whole bunch of other people with the express purpose being, not to "hang out" or simply spend time together, but to make a public statement, a statement that's not "about yourself" but about an issue of collective concern. One's "personalized" invitation does not shift that focus.

DJP I think you're using the term "making it about yourself" in a way different from how I understand it, so some of this may be semantics and I'm just going to let go of this little squabble today...

One's "personalized" invitation does not shift that focus.

― never have i been a blue calm sea (collardio gelatinous), Thursday, December 4, 2014 8:51 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Aaron's piece speaks to where this might creak--especially in college towns, you wind up with people who are there more to buff their web identities than to understand what's happening to the people around them.

An unnamed white Phoenix police officer shot and killed an unarmed 34-year-old black man, Rumain Brisbon, Tuesday evening.

Brandon Dickerson, who told FOX-10 that he was with Brisbon when the officer approached and that he didn’t hear the officer give any commands. According to police, Brisbon ran when approached; the Phoenix Police Department claims that after a brief struggle, Brisbon reached for a bottle of prescription painkillers in his pocket—which the officer mistook for a gun.

Phoenix Police spokesperson Sergeant Trent Crump told the local news station that the officer who shot and killed Brisbon “was doing what we expect him to do, which is fight crime.”

http://colorlines.com/archives/2014/12/white_phoenix_pd_officer_shoots_and_kills_unarmed_black_man.html

Goddamnit

Absolutely, Hoos, I can see how it can turn into that (which is why I wrote that it doesn't automatically or necessarily become that).

The particulars and the context matter.

Xp obv

JFC

Why did your friend think this might be a good idea? Did he explain ?

― never have i been a blue calm sea (collardio gelatinous), Thursday, December 4, 2014 8:12 PM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well contra IO's point upthread, my friend was arguing that TBTN was designed to be a safe space for women to be women in public without fear, and that the presence of men changed the whole dynamic--so, she argued, do white people whose very presence might cause black people to behave differently.

i told her i'd be careful about projecting "these black people would totally be doing what i think they should be doing if not for me and these other white people being here," and she said "well i'm not projecting, i *remember* feeling constrained and held back by the presence of men at TBTN."

i steered the conversation elsewhere from there, but the point has kept me thinking.

Ok, thanks hoos

just wanted to say i couldn't sleep at night for thinking of the horror of all this.

i'm not black and i'm not (yet) among the economically marginalized, so i can't pretend that something like what happened to eric garner is particularly likely to happen to me. but i'm a big guy, i've gone through periods of being a severe asthmatic, and i have an unfortunate tendency to mouth off to authority figures when i feel i'm being wronged. so the whole sequence of events -- he's sick of police harrassment so he mouths off, he's brough to the ground, he can't breathe --just gets to me in a very very visceral way. which just adds to the larger social/racial/political horrors i'm already cognizant of and makes them feel that much more acute.