Ongoing U.S Police Brutality and Corruption Discussion Thread

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.

Cleveland:

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-and-city-cleveland-agree-reform-division-police-after-finding-pattern-or

This can't be shared or liked enough.

http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/582-we-are-all-accountable/

That is great

I know, right? This has bothered me about music in general for a while now.

Because I'm the only non-Black person in my anti-street harassment org I've thought about the question of whether my presence was making it unsafe for other women, applying the comparison of how we feel relieved w/r/t our anti-harassment work when men aren't in the room. Back during the series of bell hooks discussions with various other WoC, she said something like "We're not here to feel safe, we're here to be uncomfortable for the sake of change," and I cautiously worked on that principle. And my lead organizers let me know that I was welcome and part of the group and shouldn't leave, which I valued immensely bc I was questioning whether I shd stay.

I would cautiously advance that it's situational? And as a white person it's important to ask yrself, Am I doing this because it's effective or bc it makes me feel good? And act accordingly.

Very nicely put, in orbit. Thank you for that.

Otoh I do follow a lot of WoC thinkers on twitter, for inst, who react v badly to white people either quoting them or @-ing them or adding their own thoughts when retweeting links and so on. No one tactic is going to make everyone happy.

as a white person it's important to ask yrself, Am I doing this because it's effective or bc it makes me feel good? And act accordingly.

so good, thank you

There's a fundraiser for Tamir Rice's family to cover the costs of burying their child, if anyone is moved to throw in. Shaun King, an activist and, I guess it's fair to say, citizen journalist who's been covering Ferguson extensively is putting this out on twitter asking people to help--just so you know where it's coming from.

http://www.youcaring.com/memorial-fundraiser/help-the-family-of-tamir-rice/273407

Is the Boss an ineffective voice of protest? Or does the media pay too much attention to angry white guys?

http://bit.ly/15SUI0G

stop trolling this thread.

thank you for that link, io

Pitchfork article kinda dovetails with what I think about the nba.. Donald Sterling said some fucked up shit, the players mobilized ferociously on social media, etc and got him kicked out. Why dont they use their clout to push harder on more important things? Prob bc its controversial and the NBA would freak the fuck out because $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

I'm not trolling, I genuinely care about this issue and I have a personal stake in it, which I care not to discuss.

Perhaps you misunderstand me. I mean - are pundits exaggerating about how many angry reactionary white guys there are - are they legitimating a viewpoint by paying too much attention to it?

on the plus side

Matty T: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-police-in-america-are-becoming-illegitimate-20141205?page=2

Man, fvck this:

"In Andrew's case, police thought the sight of two black men standing in front of a project tower at 1 a.m. was suspicious and stopped them. In reality, Andrew was listening to music on headphones with a friend on his way home after a long shift driving a casino shuttle. When he balked at being stopped, just like Garner balked, cops wrote him up for "obstructing" a street completely empty of pedestrians, and the court demanded 50 bucks for his crime.

This policy of constantly badgering people for trifles generates bloodcurdling anger in "hot spot" neighborhoods with industrial efficiency. And then something like the Garner case happens and it all comes into relief. Six armed police officers tackling and killing a man for selling a 75-cent cigarette."

that's a great piece

yeah.

This is the crooked math that's going to crash American law enforcement if policies aren't changed.

Our entire country is being debased, devalued and destroyed by "crooked math," from asshole cops to dickheads obstinately trying to overturn "Obamacare"/Obama himself. It breaks my heart.

I said this on the Ferguson thread, but I am so glad Taibbi is back at RS

just forwarded that to everyone in my address book

^^

THIS

me too. and right at just the right time.

bbbbut lagoon hates him

zzzzz

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/hollywood-highland-shooting-report-284945511.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Middle of crowded street, two cops unload clips because "we thought he had a knife."

One woman said a man ran into a McDonald's shouting that police shot his friend, who sometimes "liked to wave a knife to scare tourists."

well THAT'S not gonna get much sympathy

These numbers are upsetting: http://www.vox.com/2014/12/6/7342241/police-abuse-resisting

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/crimewatch/police-report-tulsa-officer-fatally-shoots-daughter-s-boyfriend/article_c99c71e0-c77a-5c55-8b6a-30ca3a4f0b84.html

what a bizarre story there.

well THAT'S not gonna get much sympathy

― j., Saturday, December 6, 2014 2:30 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

come on, though. they shot a man who was not threatening them because they had reason to believe he had a knife. said knife, when they did find it & tweeted out an image of, turned out to be a pocket knife, swiss-army style. which they didn't even see when he was shot, which he was shot in the street for suspicion of having.

The burden of the perfect victim suggests that only impeccable résumés may qualify for protection under the law and the support of the community.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/black-america-and-the-burden-of-the-perfect-victim/2014/08/22/30318ec2-27d1-11e4-958c-268a320a60ce_story.html

yes, i am aware.

hope that wasn't condescending--just an important point to make i think.

People of color must take care always to be a credit to their race. It's right there in the rule book.

http://www.wnyc.org/story/can-the-nypd-spot-the-abusive-cop/
The eye-popping statistic here is that in 51.5k NYC cases of stated "resisting arrest" since 2009, 5% of cops account for 40% of the charges and 15% account for 72% of the same charges.

CCRB Records show that 40 percent of the 35,000 officers on the force today have never been the subject of a citizen complaint. Another 20 percent have only one. Yet about a thousand cops have 10 or more complaints. One has been able to rack up 51.

grim lol

http://gapersblock.com/merge/archives/2014/12/06/i-couldnt-believe-what-i-was-hearing/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/12/06/i-was-a-st-louis-cop-my-peers-were-racist-and-violent-and-theres-only-one-fix/