Black lives, blue lives, guns, terrorists, psychos, 2nd amendment...

[Spiky Bugger]

Well I have strong feelings about everything that's happening. I can see the picture clearly from both ends of the spectrum. Being a black women with a knuckle head black son who has ADHD and does stupid things like dig in his pockets when 30 swat are around you to get his phone to call his mom. Wtf? Then I'm a Leo, even though I still consider myself a social worker, who understands the goal at the end of the day is to go home safely to your family.

I won't tell you completely how I really feel. But I do know violence is not the answer.

Everyone who is so upset about black Lives matters. It just means black lives matter TOO! In less than 6 months over 125 black men have been murdered by the police. I have yet to see 1 story of an innocent non weapon having Anglo male wrongly murdered by police. Instead I see things like you murder 9 blacks in church and instead of blowing you up they got you a cheeseburger. I'm just saying! As my daughter said it's the same idea you go to a cancer walk and start screaming OTHER DISEASES MATTER!

Anywho

Well, see? Except for the seat belt thing, your daughter IS smart!

 

[Charris]

Well, see? Except for the seat belt thing, your daughter IS smart!

I guess she's salvageable! Bawahahaha lol

 

[Munchkin]

@harrietvane I agree we in general are lacking in things like sanity and compassion right now. If Australia wanted me, I would probably move! But they are too smart to let me in!

 

[k9ophile]

@Charris According to statistics, there are more whites shot by the police then there are blacks. I think statistics can be skewed and generally ignore them. It is my opinion that the black victims are reported more because it makes a great tool for keeping us divided. I can't remember the last time I read a news story about a Muslim doing anything human. And let us not forget the whole all access to bathrooms by any sex brouhaha.

I also think this dichotomy of red states versus blue states is something stoked to keep us more divided. I actually think we're various shades of purple since most of us have qualities of liberalism and conservatism in our make up. Or the infamous 1% that has all the money. If there is anything to divide us, somebody somewhere is going to use that to their own advantage.

I realize I may be coming off as a paranoid nut case ranting about mysterious people who are doing their best to foment all this ****. So be it. I believe in many things that I can't prove. Some of these things comfort me while others terrify me. In that respect, I think we're all getting played.

 

[Charris]

@Charris According to statistics, there are more whites shot by the police then there are blacks. I think statistics can be skewed and generally ignore them. It is my opinion that the black victims are reported more because it makes a great tool for keeping us divided. I can't remember the last time I read a news story about a Muslim doing anything human. And let us not forget the whole all access to bathrooms by any sex brouhaha.

I also think this dichotomy of red states versus blue states is something stoked to keep us more divided. I actually think we're various shades of purple since most of us have qualities of liberalism and conservatism in our make up. Or the infamous 1% that has all the money. If there is anything to divide us, somebody somewhere is going to use that to their own advantage.

I realize I may be coming off as a paranoid nut case ranting about mysterious people who are doing their best to foment all this ****. So be it. I believe in many things that I can't prove. Some of these things comfort me while others terrify me. In that respect, I think we're all getting played.

@k9ophile I'd like to see these studies. I would be willing to say more whites could have been shot because they're the majority of the population. I'm talking the disproportionate amount of blacks that don't fair as well within the justice system. I'm talking about blacks that have been gunned down because they allegedly thought they had weapons or were alledgedly resisting arrest. Also if these statistics are true then why are ANGLO people not as outraged as we are about innocent men being gunned down. Honestly I believe it's intended to create a genocide of the black race by a few bad officers. I concede there are a few bad employees in all fields but it doesn't excuse their behavior. It also doesn't make it appropriate to declare war on the entire field because of the bad cops.

 

[DianaCox]

"more whites shot by the police then there are blacks"

Lies, damned lies, and statistics. Although I'd like to see the source of your statistics, keep in mind that blacks are only about 13% of the population, but they are far more likely to be shot by police: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-by-police-yes-but-no/?utm_term=.1699329fae50

"In 2015, The Washington Post launched a real-time database to track fatal police shootings, and the project continues this year. As of Sunday, 1,502 people have been shot and killed by on-duty police officers since Jan. 1, 2015. Of them, 732 were white, and 381 were black (and 382 were of another or unknown race).

But as data scientists and policing experts often note, comparing how many or how often white people are killed by police to how many or how often black people are killed by the police is statistically dubious unless you first adjust for population.

According to the most recent census data, there are nearly 160 million more white people in America than there are black people. White people make up roughly 62 percent of the U.S. population but only about 49 percent of those who are killed by police officers. African Americans, however, account for 24 percent of those fatally shot and killed by the police despite being just 13 percent of the U.S. population. As The Post noted in a new analysis published last week, that means black Americans are 2.5 times as likely as white Americans to be shot and killed by police officers.

U.S. police officers have shot and killed the exact same number of unarmed white people as they have unarmed black people: 50 each. But because the white population is approximately five times larger than the black population, that means unarmed black Americans were five times as likely as unarmed white Americans to be shot and killed by a police officer.

Police have shot and killed a young black man (ages 18 to 29) — such as Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. —175 times since January 2015; 24 of them were unarmed. Over that same period, police have shot and killed 172 young white men, 18 of whom were unarmed. Once again, while in raw numbers there were similar totals of white and black victims, blacks were killed at rates disproportionate to their percentage of the U.S. population. Of all of the unarmed people shot and killed by police in 2015, 40 percent of them were black men, even though black men make up just 6 percent of the nation’s population."

 

[Marquis Mark]

Diane's post is accurate, however it leaves out that far more violent crime is committed by African Americans relative to their population:

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/u...he-u.s.-2012/tables/43tabledatadecoverviewpdf


I think there are too many absolutes on both sides. Yes, there are some racist cops who are fearful of black males and more likely to pull the trigger. I think it also true that some police shootings are justified. But this notion that one side is right and the other is wrong is just silly. In any great debate, the truth is usually somewhere in the middle.

 

[k9ophile]

@k9ophile I'd like to see these studies. I would be willing to say more whites could have been shot because they're the majority of the population. I'm talking the disproportionate amount of blacks that don't fair as well within the justice system. I'm talking about blacks that have been gunned down because they allegedly thought they had weapons or were alledgedly resisting arrest. Also if these statistics are true then why are ANGLO people not as outraged as we are about innocent men being gunned down. Honestly I believe it's intended to create a genocide of the black race by a few bad officers. I concede there are a few bad employees in all fields but it doesn't excuse their behavior. It also doesn't make it appropriate to declare war on the entire field because of the bad cops.

I've seen some articles and Googled. Like I said, I don't trust statistics because too many people who gather them go in with a bias. I have no doubt that there are ******* cops who abuse their authority to carry out a racist agenda. I also believe that if two men are convicted of a crime with everything being identical but race, the black one would receive a greater sentence.

As Diana said: Lies, damned lies, and statistics. It's true. I didn't say I believed the statistics, just that they're out there. Some people will believe them and some are counting on that to confuse us and advance an agenda.

 

[DianaCox]

"far more violent crime is committed by African Americans relative to their population"
So? That doesn't justify shooting someone. It just purports to justify the PREJUDICE that the next African American a cop encounters is more likely than not going to be prejudged to be dangerous and justify the shooting.

 

[Marquis Mark]

"far more violent crime is committed by African Americans relative to their population"
So? That doesn't justify shooting someone. It just purports to justify the PREJUDICE that the next African American a cop encounters is more likely than not going to be prejudged to be dangerous and justify the shooting.

In my case, I was responding to your statistics which were designed to illustrate (I assume that's what bold/red was for) that African Americans are shot by police disproportionate to their population.

However, your stats didn't paint a complete picture and therefore could be misleading leading to a worse, rather than better, understanding. I was trying to draw a more balanced picture. If you consider that the rate of violent crime is higher in the black community, then probability dictates that cops will have to have a disproportionate number of encounters with African Americans which, in turn, increases the odds that some of them will end in shootings.

 

[DianaCox]

But - part of the reason for the "disproportionate number of encounters with African Americans" is the prejudiced view that any particular AA can and should be "stopped and frisked" based on the higher crime rate of AAs in general.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-new-jersey-doj-idUSKCN0WW17M (Wed Mar 30, 2016):

"Police in Newark, New Jersey, will institute sweeping reforms to resolve allegations of widespread civil-rights violations under the supervision of a federal monitor, U.S. and city officials announced on Wednesday.

The changes will settle allegations by the U.S. Justice Department that the police department in New Jersey's largest city engaged in a pattern of unconstitutional practices that targeted black residents for unwarranted street stops, used excessive force and stole residents' property.

"Far too many police reports have failed to describe a constitutionally adequate reason for stops of people on the street," Paul Fishman, the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey, told reporters."​

 

[Charris]

I'm just going to sit this right here.

 

[DianaCox]

The situation is of course nuanced as Mark noted, and the complex psychological interactions between police and AAs based on past performance color both sides' judgments of the situation - the police are EXPECTING AAs to be more violent and more likely to be armed; the AAs are expecting to be treated abusively and are more frightened that the interaction will not be benign than someone who is not AA ever would be; therefore, both sides are twitchy, and angry and scared and tend to overreact.

And possibly (based on what I have read, and inappropriately from what I've seen on TV on crime shows), there is an unhealthy dollop of attitude between them based on all of this as well - the cops start out very aggressively (immediately stop and frisk, vs. mere conversation or no stop at all if it were in a different neighborhood), and many years of bad blood and probably bravado if others are watching inspires the AAs to be disrespectful and mouthy, which foments more tension.

I wouldn't want to be in the shoes of EITHER the police or the AAs in these situations. I would be dead or have lost my mind/had PTSD within a year or less. It is a terrible situation.

 

[Marquis Mark]

The situation is of course nuanced as Mark noted, and the complex psychological interactions between police and AAs based on past performance color both sides' judgments of the situation - the police are EXPECTING AAs to be more violent and more likely to be armed; the AAs are expecting to be treated abusively and are more frightened that the interaction will not be benign than someone who is not AA ever would be; therefore, both sides are twitchy, and angry and scared and tend to overreact.

And possibly (based on what I have read, and inappropriately from what I've seen on TV on crime shows), there is an unhealthy dollop of attitude between them based on all of this as well - the cops start out very aggressively (immediately stop and frisk, vs. mere conversation or no stop at all if it were in a different neighborhood), and many years of bad blood and probably bravado if others are watching inspires the AAs to be disrespectful and mouthy, which foments more tension.

I wouldn't want to be in the shoes of EITHER the police or the AAs in these situations. I would be dead or have lost my mind/had PTSD within a year or less. It is a terrible situation.

I think you expressed one of the dilemmas very well.

On a personal note, I was once misidentified as a burglary suspect resulting in four angry cops pointing rifles at my head and forcing me to the ground. I was put in handcuffs. It was scary and humiliating as it was in public. After they figured out I wasn't their guy I was released without so much as a "Sorry about that." I lodged a complaint but let it go after that. What I didn't do was resist, demand immediate answers to all my questions, move suddenly, etc

I think the cops were wrong and overly aggressive but that wasn't the time or place to adjudicate my grievances. Just as it isn't a cop's place to act as judge, jury or executioner. All of that is for the courts.

The moral of the story is I'm alive because I didn't internalize it (I know as a white guy that's a lot easier for me to say). But I think a lot of people -- black, white, Latino, etc -- end up shot because they try to hold court right there in the streets. Don't. Video tape them, get witnesses, get a lawyer, don't consent to searches, but don't put a fight. I have never seen anyone win a fight with cops. Ever.

 

[Spiky Bugger]

I think you expressed one of the dilemmas very well.

On a personal note, I was once misidentified as a burglary suspect resulting in four angry cops pointing rifles at my head and forcing me to the ground. I was put in handcuffs. It was scary and humiliating as it was in public. After they figured out I wasn't their guy I was released without so much as a "Sorry about that." I lodged a complaint but let it go after that. What I didn't do was resist, demand immediate answers to all my questions, move suddenly, etc

I think the cops were wrong and overly aggressive but that wasn't the time or place to adjudicate my grievances. Just as it isn't a cop's place to act as judge, jury or executioner. All of that is for the courts.

The moral of the story is I'm alive because I didn't internalize it (I know as a white guy that's a lot easier for me to say). But I think a lot of people -- black, white, Latino, etc -- end up shot because they try to hold court right there in the streets. Don't. Video tape them, get witnesses, get a lawyer, don't consent to searches, but don't put a fight. I have never seen anyone win a fight with cops. Ever.

I came here to post a "damned Mexicans" thread, but my comments will fit here.

I'm just mentioning that EVEN KNOWING THE WORDS AND SPEAKING THE LANGUAGE is no guarantee that communication is going to take place. (I know this from being married almost 43 years to someone from a somewhat similar culture.)

Example: I need a housekeeper. Most Mexican housekeepers want to be paid for cleaning the house...rounding numbers here...like "I will clean your house, in about four hours, for $80." I think most Gringas want to pay by the hour, as in, "I will pay you $20 per hour for four hours." These positions are not the same, mostly because our cultures are SO different.

My (terminally organized) sister's (not-Mexican) housekeeper works for four hours. The first three hours are "regular" housekeeping. The last hour is that week's project...maybe an hour of organizing the linen closet. Or an hour emptying two shelves in the kitchen, putting down new shelf paper and putting everything back. I'd hire HER, but she's an airhead.

But if the housekeeper thinks she's "done" when she is convinced the house is clean...how might this "regular cleaning plus extra project" work? In MY mind, I want someone who will clean my house for four hours for $80. In HER mind, she's going to clean a house, for $80.

And never the twain shall meet...


Anyway, the potential housekeeper and I are both well into our "grandma years," live in adjoining cities, and were both speaking Spanish...but little communication was happening due to cultural differences.

And that's another aspect of what's happening between cops the people they are serving.

Damned Mexicans.

 

[hilary1617]

I was at a Ladysmith Black Mambazo show Monday night. The opening act was Sweet Honey in the Rock. They appropriately reminded all of us that "We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes...."