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geldedgoat
Joined: 05 Mar 2009
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 Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2015 8:12 pm Post subject: |
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Over the past week, I've seen several local news articles detailing police harassment... of whites. The general reaction, as given in the comments sections of these articles, breaks down as follows: black commenters, with a smattering of white support, nearly without exception shrugged their shoulders and referenced Ferguson; and the white response was more often than not a utilitarian defense of the police, coupled with a "see, we're not racist!" There were of course some who denounced the actions appropriately, though they have been in the extreme minority.
Progress. |
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Plain Meaning
Joined: 18 Oct 2014
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| Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2015 9:21 am Post subject: |
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Where's the Conservative Outcry on Ferguson Police Abuses?
| Conor Friedersdorf wrote: |
No city in America better illustrates government run amok than Ferguson, Missouri. Libertarians have long excoriated the city. Less so, movement conservatives. Most are ambivalent about the abuses. Some have even defended Ferguson officials. Why haven't conservatives seized this opportunity to highlight government-caused damage and to show blacks, Ferguson's most frequently abused demographic, that the right is intent on protecting everyone's civil rights?
Some critics of movement conservatism believe that the answer is simply racism, but that label obscures more than it reveals. Many conservative institutions and commentators reject the principles of white supremacy, favor equal rights, and bear no personal animosity toward black people. Yet many of these same people and institutions tend to ignore, downplay, and de-prioritize fixing government abuses when the victims are black, a tendency underscored by the reaction to the Ferguson report. |
Conor Friedersdorf then documents the responses from the National Review. Critical writers are in bold. Defensive writers are underlined.
| Conor Friedersdorf wrote: |
here are the posts and articles National Review Online pegged to the release of the Ferguson report:
-Before the report's release, Heather Mac Donald, a frequent, informed defender of U.S. police agencies, published a preemptive critique. She argued that before DOJ investigators charge Ferguson officials with racism for stopping or arresting a disproportionate number of blacks, they should recognize that blacks there commit more crimes than whites, and that banning police activity that has a disproportionate impact on blacks will make Ferguson less safe for innocents, especially blacks at risk of violent crime.
-After the report's release, Brendan Bordelon published a post summarizing the reaction of Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke during a Fox News appearance. The lawman characterizes the Justice Department's work as a "witch hunt," says he is "not buying one word of it," and declares that Attorney General Eric Holder has "a genuine hostility ... specifically toward white police officers."
-Andrew Johnson focused on how the DOJ dispelled various inaccuracies in the activist narrative of Michael Brown's shooting. At the end, though, he added: "The report does find that the Ferguson Police Department exhibited a systemic racial bias in its policing efforts, with its officers singling out and targeting black residents for various violations, and exchanging multiple racist jokes in emails."
-Roger Clegg declared that the DOJ report vindicated Heather Mac Donald's critique.
-Andrew McCarthy, relying on intuition and citing no particular evidence, declared the DOJ investigation into Michael Brown's shooting "a pretext" to subject Ferguson's police to a full-scale investigation, all so that DOJ could drum up violations and usurp local control.
-Peter Kirsanow declared the DOJ report "a farce, wrapped in a fraud, inside a sham." He focuses on its assertion of racial discrimination. "The report has accomplished its objective," he concluded. "It’s smeared police officers across the country, thereby giving the administration an excuse to exert greater control over local police departments. And it gives credence to the toxic storyline that the country as a whole remains nearly indistinguishable from 1960s Selma."
-Ryan Lovelace posted to highlight remarks by Attorney General Holder, who pledged to do "everything he can" to change Ferguson's culture of law enforcement, adding that his agency is "prepared to use all the powers that we have, all the power that we have, to ensure that the situation changes there.”
-Thomas Sowell wrote a column disparaging the Ferguson report for relying on disparate impact, writing as if the DOJ documented nothing other than a disproportionate percentage of black people being stopped or arrested. In fact, one could ignore every part of the DOJ report that alleged disparate impact or even racism and still have a long list of alarming abuses to reflect upon.
-Only one National Review writer, Ian Tuttle, grapples with some of Ferguson's many abuses and gives the publication's readers a peek at what all the outrage is about. "In the interest of expanding its treasury, Ferguson has employed its police department ... as an enforcer of the myriad municipal regulations that, rigorously enforced, nickel-and-dime the citizenry to the local government’s benefit," he writes. "This is the injustice on which the Justice Department has stumbled, which helps to explain the city’s racial tensions—and which merits urgent correction." |
Ian Tuttle states the abuses were not racism.
More Conservatives react to Ferguson Report
| Quote: |
-Jason Lee Steorts, the managing editor, published an exceptional Friday blog post arguing that while many on the right dismiss the Ferguson report as spurious, "anyone who cares about protecting citizens from abusive and arbitrary officialdom" should be grateful that it exists, "whatever else he may think of Eric Holder’s tenure as attorney general."
-A couple days later, Leon H. Wolf published a blog post at Red State titled, "Many Conservatives Are Blowing It on the Ferguson DOJ Report." As he sees it, interpreting the news out of Ferguson has become "a part of ideological tribalism," where conservatives "stand for the Ferguson PD" and "if you are a liberal you stand against them." Liberals have thus resisted the information that Michael Brown never put his hands above his head and said, "Don't shoot," while conservatives have resisted information suggesting that "the Ferguson PD —as with many other municipal police departments in the country—truly is out of control, in that it recklessly violates the constitutional rights of the citizens of Ferguson and does so in a manner that has a clearly disproportionate impact on minorities."
UPDATE: David French added:
| David French wrote: |
| We often take for granted the rule of law. If you are blessed to live in a town where the officials are relatively clean, or if you’re among the class of people that officials fear to cross, then public institutions seem benign — helpful, even. But there are millions of our fellow citizens who live a different reality, under the authority of different kinds of public officials — officials who view them as virtual ATMs, regardless of their ability to pay. And when the government imposes that mindset on police officers, forcing men and women who are trained to respond to (and anticipate) the most violent incidents to essentially become the armed tax collectors of a corrupt system, then that government is unjust, and its officials must be made to feel the bite of the Constitution that they’ve willfully and continually abused. |
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JASON LEE STEORTS
| Jason Lee Steorts wrote: |
Here are the main points I’ve taken away from it:
Ferguson police officers have routinely violated constitutional rights and engaged in conduct that is, by any reasonable standard, appalling.
The City of Ferguson has been running a kind of racket to extract every dollar it can from citizens who violate — or are, in some cases, falsely accused of violating — minor traffic laws and city ordinances.
Despite their lord-among-the-vassals attitude toward citizens, Ferguson officials have scrupled not to pull strings for their friends and family members.
The evidence of racial bias is more robust than the Right has acknowledged.
The Right should be raising a cry over the abuses documented in the Ferguson report. |
LEON H. WOLF
| Leon H. Wolf wrote: |
Even if you read only the parts of the Ferguson DOJ report that come directly from the files of the FPD (which is to say, files that would be most favorable to the Department), the report paints an incredibly damning picture of the Ferguson Police Department. No conservative on earth should feel comfortable with the way the Ferguson PD has been operating for years, even according to their own documents.
It is possible to condemn unjust and oppressive policing and also the unprovoked murder of police, and it is indicative of societal sickness caused by excessive partisanship that makes us unable to see that. We can do better than our response to the Ferguson DOJ report. And our country deserves better from us. |
DAVID FRENCH
| David French wrote: |
| In my town, if you were poor or lacked connections, “the rules” applied to you with a vengeance. After all, someone had to pay the city’s bills. There was no escaping speeding tickets, zoning officials were ruthless, and each interaction with the unyielding authorities carried with it the threat of immediate escalation, sometimes without justification. A friend of mine was once beaten senseless by a local police officer after a traffic stop — all because he was dating the cop’s ex-girlfriend. Because of this experience, I often shudder when I hear conservatives extolling the virtues of “local control” or “local authorities” — as if local officials are somehow inherently more virtuous than the feds. Government is prone to corruption at all levels — especially when under the hammerlock of one-party rule (the Democrats ruled my town). Make no mistake, I love my hometown, and I love the people in it, but that love has nothing to do with its government. Reading the DOJ’s Ferguson report took me back to It is the story of a small class of the local power brokers creating two sets of rules, one for the connected and another for the mass of people who are forced — often at gunpoint — to pay for the “privilege” of being governed. This is a very old story, and if the poor of Ferguson are overwhelmingly black, then it’s inevitable that a government built on exploitation will disproportionately exploit black citizens. I have no doubt that there are some racists in Ferguson’s leadership, but we also know that even black leaders will exploit black citizens in the cities they lead — setting up de facto rules that benefit the governing class at the expense of the poor. See, for example, Detroit. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2015 11:52 pm Post subject: |
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Lead prosecutor apologizes for role in sending man to death row.
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Editor's Note: Attorney A.M. "Marty" Stroud III, of Shreveport, was the lead prosecutor in the December 1984 first-degree murder trial of Glenn Ford, who was sentenced to death for the Nov. 5, 1983 death of Shreveport jeweler Isadore Rozeman. Ford was released from prison March 11, 2014, after the state admitted new evidence proving Ford was not the killer. Stroud is responding to an editorial in the March 6 edition of The Times that urged the state to now give Ford justice by not fighting compensation allowed for those wrongfully convicted.
RE: "State should give Ford real justice," March 8, 6D
This is the first, and probably will be the last, time that I have publicly voiced an opinion on any of your editorials. Quite frankly, I believe many of your editorials avoid the hard questions on a current issue in order not to be too controversial. I congratulate you here, though, because you have taken a clear stand on what needs to be done in the name of justice.
Glenn Ford should be completely compensated to every extent possible because of the flaws of a system that effectively destroyed his life. The audacity of the state's effort to deny Mr. Ford any compensation for the horrors he suffered in the name of Louisiana justice is appalling.
I know of what I speak.
I was at the trial of Glenn Ford from beginning to end. I witnessed the imposition of the death sentence upon him. I believed that justice was done. I had done my job. I was one of the prosecutors and I was proud of what I had done.
The death sentence had illustrated that our community would brook no tolerance for cold-blooded killers. The Old Testament admonishment, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, was alive and well in Caddo Parish. I even received a congratulatory note from one of the state's witnesses, concluding with the question, "how does it feel to be wearing a black glove?"
Members of the victim's family profusely thanked the prosecutors and investigators for our efforts. They had received some closure, or so everyone thought. However, due to the hard work and dedication of lawyers working with the Capital Post-Conviction Project of Louisiana, along with the efforts of the Caddo Parish district attorney's and sheriff's offices, the truth was uncovered.
Glenn Ford was an innocent man. He was released from the hell hole he had endured for the last three decades.
...
Pursuant to the review and investigation of cold homicide cases, investigators uncovered evidence that exonerated Mr. Ford. Indeed, this evidence was so strong that had it been disclosed during of the investigation there would not have been sufficient evidence to even arrest Mr. Ford!
And yet, despite this grave injustice, the state does not accept any responsibility for the damage suffered by one of its citizens. The bureaucratic response appears to be that nobody did anything intentionally wrong, thus the state has no responsibility. This is nonsensical. Explain that position to Mr. Ford and his family. Facts are stubborn things, they do not go away.
At the time this case was tried there was evidence that would have cleared Glenn Ford. The easy and convenient argument is that the prosecutors did not know of such evidence, thus they were absolved of any responsibility for the wrongful conviction.
I can take no comfort in such an argument. As a prosecutor and officer of the court, I had the duty to prosecute fairly. While I could properly strike hard blows, ethically I could not strike foul ones.
Part of my duty was to disclose promptly any exculpatory evidence relating to trial and penalty issues of which I was made aware. My fault was that I was too passive. I did not consider the rumors about the involvement of parties other than Mr. Ford to be credible, especially since the three others who were indicted for the crime were ultimately released for lack of sufficient evidence to proceed to the trial.
...
My mindset was wrong and blinded me to my purpose of seeking justice, rather than obtaining a conviction of a person who I believed to be guilty. I did not hide evidence, I simply did not seriously consider that sufficient information may have been out there that could have led to a different conclusion. And that omission is on me.
...
I did not question the unfairness of Mr. Ford having appointed counsel who had never tried a criminal jury case much less a capital one. It never concerned me that the defense had insufficient funds to hire experts or that defense counsel shut down their firms for substantial periods of time to prepare for trial. These attorneys tried their very best, but they were in the wrong arena. They were excellent attorneys with experience in civil matters. But this did not prepare them for trying to save the life of Mr. Ford.
The jury was all white, Mr. Ford was African-American. Potential African-American jurors were struck with little thought about potential discrimination because at that time a claim of racial discrimination in the selection of jurors could not be successful unless it could be shown that the office had engaged in a pattern of such conduct in other cases.
...
In 1984, I was 33 years old. I was arrogant, judgmental, narcissistic and very full of myself. I was not as interested in justice as I was in winning. To borrow a phrase from Al Pacino in the movie "And Justice for All," "Winning became everything."
After the death verdict in the Ford trial, I went out with others and celebrated with a few rounds of drinks. That's sick. I had been entrusted with the duty to seek the death of a fellow human being, a very solemn task that certainly did not warrant any "celebration."
In my rebuttal argument during the penalty phase of the trial, I mocked Mr. Ford, stating that this man wanted to stay alive so he could be given the opportunity to prove his innocence. I continued by saying this should be an affront to each of you jurors, for he showed no remorse, only contempt for your verdict.
How totally wrong was I.
...
Glenn Ford deserves every penny owed to him under the compensation statute. This case is another example of the arbitrariness of the death penalty. I now realize, all too painfully, that as a young 33-year-old prosecutor, I was not capable of making a decision that could have led to the killing of another human being.
No one should be given the ability to impose a sentence of death in any criminal proceeding. We are simply incapable of devising a system that can fairly and impartially impose a sentence of death because we are all fallible human beings.
The clear reality is that the death penalty is an anathema to any society that purports to call itself civilized. It is an abomination that continues to scar the fibers of this society and it will continue to do so until this barbaric penalty is outlawed. Until then, we will live in a land that condones state assisted revenge and that is not justice in any form or fashion.
I end with the hope that providence will have more mercy for me than I showed Glenn Ford. But, I am also sobered by the realization that I certainly am not deserving of it.
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Kepler
Joined: 24 Sep 2007
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| Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2015 3:05 am Post subject: |
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I skimmed through the Ferguson report. I think they certainly uncovered plenty of evidence of corruption, but overall I think the report was pretty one-sided. One quote from the report-
"African Americans are 2.07 times more likely to be searched during a vehicular stop but are 26% less likely to have contraband found on them during a search."
Okay, but if you're going to make a comparison between black and white crime why limit it to contraband? How about telling us how blacks compare to whites when it comes to assault, rape, murder, and robbery? Is it because that information wouldn't fit the narrative of innocent blacks being targeted by the police? And how much of what the report calls intentional racial bias is due to hot spots policing: aggressive law enforcement in high crime areas while people in low crime areas are left alone? |
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geldedgoat
Joined: 05 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2015 10:13 am Post subject: |
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| Kepler wrote: |
| "African Americans are 2.07 times more likely to be searched during a vehicular stop but are 26% less likely to have contraband found on them during a search." |
Some of the contents of the report are clearly problematic. This one, less so.
To make the following math a bit easier, let's simplify those numbers: 2 times more likely to be searched and 25% less likely to yield contraband. Let's say, then, that 200 blacks and 100 non-blacks were stopped over a period (since I couldn't find the actual numbers, I chose this because of the 67% black composition of Ferguson; blacks, though, are obviously going to be stopped at a higher relative rate than this). If 20% of non-blacks are searched, yielding 20 total searches, then 40% of blacks will have been searched, yielding 80 total searches. If 40% of the searches of non-blacks yielded positive results with 8 instances of contraband found, then 30% of the searches of blacks will have yielded positive results with 24 instances of contraband found. Three times more in total, but at a lower rate.
"But how can this not be troubling if you admit that blacks are being targeted at a higher rate even though searches of them are found to be with merit at a higher rate?!" Good question. For that, I turn to another untroubling statistic that is somehow reported as disturbing: "African Americans account for 95 percent of Manner of Walking charges." Here's an article describing how dreadfully racist it all is.
| Quote: |
After protests, occasional violence and a national controversy that has lasted for months, the case of Officer Darren Wilson ended Wednesday as the Department of Justice announced he will not face federal charges in the shooting death of Michael Brown, an unarmed young black man, in Ferguson, Mo. last August. But the case began when Wilson told Brown and a friend to stop walking in the street and to get on the sidewalk.
Investigators found "no evidence upon which prosecutors can rely to disprove Wilson's stated subjective belief that he feared for his safety." In other words, Wilson believed his life was in danger. Yet what if Wilson hadn't said anything to Brown in the first place?
[...]
It's pointless to speculate about what might have happened had Brown not been born black. All the circumstances of his short life would have been completely different. Still, it seems all too likely that Wilson would never have said anything to Brown about his manner of walking had he been white. |
So why do I bring this up? Well, since the Washington Post was kind enough to open the door for me, we can now look at one of those instances of 'walking while black' that is actually detailed for the public, that of Michael Brown and Dorian Johnson. According to Johnson's own account, Wilson warned them to get out of the street and only doubled back after the pair decided it would be a wonderful idea to taunt the cop... right after committing a robbery, no less. Still, what does this have to do with that first statistic? Well, here, at least, we have one example - likely among a great many more, as that Washington Post article grudgingly admitted - of blacks apparently going out of their way to antagonize a police force that already lacks a high opinion of them. Of course this is going to make officers more suspicious, as interpreting that sort of unstable behavior as potential guilt is a sensible component of their police training.
And since this ruffles Kuros' feathers and I apparently delight in the process, I'll offer my complaint yet again: by presenting these injustices, those of a valid and invalid nature alike, in a racial light, instances of genuine oppression will not receive the national condemnation to which they might otherwise be subject.
I suppose this article is lacking a key sentiment:
| Quote: |
| The bitter irony of the Michael Brown case is that if he had actually put his hands up and said don't shoot, he would almost certainly be alive today. His family would have been spared an unspeakable loss, and Ferguson, Missouri wouldn't have experienced multiple bouts of rioting, including the torching of at least a dozen businesses the night it was announced that Officer Darren Wilson wouldn't be charged with a crime. |
...but we wouldn't have a good excuse to bitch about how racist cops are. |
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Plain Meaning
Joined: 18 Oct 2014
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| Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2015 11:19 am Post subject: |
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| geldedgoat wrote: |
And since this ruffles Kuros' feathers and I apparently delight in the process, I'll offer my complaint yet again: by presenting these injustices, those of a valid and invalid nature alike, in a racial light, instances of genuine oppression will not receive the national condemnation to which they might otherwise be subject. |
You should really direct this complaint also to the following writers on the conservative National Review Online:
Jason Lee Steorts
| Quote: |
The evidence of racial bias is more robust than the Right has acknowledged.
The Right should be raising a cry over the abuses documented in the Ferguson report. |
Leon H. Wolf
| Quote: |
| It is possible to condemn unjust and oppressive policing and also the unprovoked murder of police, and it is indicative of societal sickness caused by excessive partisanship that makes us unable to see that. |
Basically, geldedgoat, your response is partisan, and mine is not. |
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geldedgoat
Joined: 05 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2015 11:43 am Post subject: |
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| Plain Meaning wrote: |
| Basically, geldedgoat, your response is partisan, and mine is not. |
Is it the complaint that confuses you or the term 'partisan' itself? Perhaps both? You did admit earlier to not seeing how your position could be labeled as such. |
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geldedgoat
Joined: 05 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Wed Apr 08, 2015 7:32 pm Post subject: |
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Has anyone reading up on the Walter Scott shooting encountered the debate between #alllivesmatter and #blacklivesmatter?
More progress. |
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sirius black
Joined: 04 Jun 2010
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| Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2015 7:37 pm Post subject: |
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The interesting thing is that its getting more and more difficult to deny a couple things. 1. that white cops treat blacks differently, almost always worse. Plenty of videos of non black people who have even gotten into fiights with cops and not shot.
2. that cops generally are treating the public bad. if one youtubes police abuse and any niche, soccer mom, elderly, co-ed and you can find a video of it.
Phones as videos has exposed a lot of the stuff that people either refused to believe or simply wanted to let happen and would deflect and lie about it.
What is very scary is that states are now passing laws saying you can't film cops arresting you or anyone. Instead of solving the problem by actually examaning cop behavior, pushsing for cameras on cops and their cars, they have succumbed to police unions and politics by passing laws that if you strip away it all, makes it easy for cops to commit murders.
If there is no video, the cops are right. In every debate on this site, people sided with the cop/shooter when there was no video and only partially when there were.
Another issue that is not discussed and why increased interaction between cops and the general public is that the police have two mandates these days. In the past it was pretty much only to protect and serve. That mandate limited the amount of interaction. Cops interacted with those they saw as a potential threat. These days the secret mandate is for the police department to be a revenue source. So cops write bullshit tickets because they are mandated to. And make more arrests for the industrial prison complex. So many states have contracted private prisons they have a quota to fill..literally. So cops need to fill the quota or the state has to pay for empty prison beds.
Cops then go to the most vulnerable, poor blacks. People with no voice. The crime rate has dropped significantly. Even the supposed high murder rate in Chicago is far lower than the total murders in Chicago in the '90s. 500 murders that was reported a couple years ago is much lower than the 7-900 annual murders in the '90s.
So cops now have to go non black areas and make arrests and write tickets. So, more bullshit tickets and arrests in middle class and working class non black areas. |
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Plain Meaning
Joined: 18 Oct 2014
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| Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2015 3:44 pm Post subject: |
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Police Brutality in Baltimore
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Over the past four years, more than 100 people have won court judgments or settlements related to allegations of brutality and civil rights violations. Victims include a 15-year-old boy riding a dirt bike, a 26-year-old pregnant accountant who had witnessed a beating, a 50-year-old woman selling church raffle tickets, a 65-year-old church deacon rolling a cigarette and an 87-year-old grandmother aiding her wounded grandson
Those cases detail a frightful human toll. Officers have battered dozens of residents who suffered broken bones — jaws, noses, arms, legs, ankles — head trauma, organ failure, and even death, coming during questionable arrests. Some residents were beaten while handcuffed; others were thrown to the pavement.
And in almost every case, prosecutors or judges dismissed the charges against the victims — if charges were filed at all. In an incident that drew headlines recently, charges against a South Baltimore man were dropped after a video showed an officer repeatedly punching him — a beating that led the police commissioner to say he was “shocked.”
Such beatings, in which the victims are most often African-Americans, carry a hefty cost. They can poison relationships between police and the community, limiting cooperation in the fight against crime, the mayor and police officials say. They also divert money in the city budget — the $5.7 million in taxpayer funds paid out since January 2011 would cover the price of a state-of-the-art rec center or renovations at more than 30 playgrounds. And that doesn’t count the $5.8 million spent by the city on legal fees to defend these claims brought against police. |
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Plain Meaning
Joined: 18 Oct 2014
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| Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2015 7:24 pm Post subject: |
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http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/nonviolence-as-compliance/391640/
| Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote: |
Now, tonight, I turn on the news and I see politicians calling for young people in Baltimore to remain peaceful and "nonviolent." These well-intended pleas strike me as the right answer to the wrong question. To understand the question, it's worth remembering what, specifically, happened to Freddie Gray. An officer made eye contact with Gray. Gray, for unknown reasons, ran. The officer and his colleagues then detained Gray. They found him in possession of a switchblade. They arrested him while he yelled in pain. And then, within an hour, his spine was mostly severed. A week later, he was dead. What specifically was the crime here? What particular threat did Freddie Gray pose? Why is mere eye contact and then running worthy of detention at the hands of the state? Why is Freddie Gray dead?
The people now calling for nonviolence are not prepared to answer these questions. Many of them are charged with enforcing the very policies that led to Gray's death, and yet they can offer no rational justification for Gray's death and so they appeal for calm. But there was no official appeal for calm when Gray was being arrested. There was no appeal for calm when Jerriel Lyles was assaulted. (“The blow was so heavy. My eyes swelled up. Blood was dripping down my nose and out my eye.”) There was no claim for nonviolence on behalf of Venus Green. (“Bitch, you ain’t no better than any of the other old black bitches I have locked up.”) There was no plea for peace on behalf of Starr Brown. (“They slammed me down on my face,” Brown added, her voice cracking. “The skin was gone on my face.")
When nonviolence is preached as an attempt to evade the repercussions of political brutality, it betrays itself. When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse. When nonviolence is preached by the representatives of the state, while the state doles out heaps of violence to its citizens, it reveals itself to be a con. And none of this can mean that rioting or violence is "correct" or "wise," any more than a forest fire can be "correct" or "wise." Wisdom isn't the point tonight. Disrespect is. In this case, disrespect for the hollow law and failed order that so regularly disrespects the rioters themselves. |
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sirius black
Joined: 04 Jun 2010
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| Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2015 4:49 pm Post subject: |
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| geldedgoat wrote: |
Has anyone reading up on the Walter Scott shooting encountered the debate between #alllivesmatter and #blacklivesmatter?
More progress. |
It seems that ever black specific meme gets co-opted. Gays, women, immigration, etc, can have specific memes and issues but if blacks do it, it has to be co-opted and widened.
You can't say black you must say 'persons of color', which could be middle eastern, latino, even some Italians of Sicilian ancestry if you want to get technical. |
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The Cosmic Hum
Joined: 09 May 2003
Location: Sonic Space
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| Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2015 7:23 pm Post subject: |
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| sirius black wrote: |
| You can't say black you must say 'persons of color', which could be middle eastern, latino, even some Italians of Sicilian ancestry if you want to get technical. |
We are all 'persons of color'.
It could mean anything...which, when taken to this PC extreme, basically means nothing.
Is that your point? |
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Plain Meaning
Joined: 18 Oct 2014
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| Posted: Wed May 06, 2015 6:57 pm Post subject: |
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| geldedgoat wrote: |
| Plain Meaning wrote: |
| an African-American woman |
I'm sure the police were able to determine this just from looking at her vehicle and profiled her just for gits and shiggles. Lemme guess: it was Escalade with spinners and a Hope'n'Change bumper sticker, maybe with a gold bra, purple lipstick, and an empty bucket of KFC in the passenger seat? |
Did you make that all up yourself? How about we avail ourselves of a reporter's profile instead of your vivid imagination.
Radley Balko profiles Antonio Morgan
| Radley Balko wrote: |
Morgan was featured in my September investigation into the municipal courts system in St. Louis County. He’s a 29-year-old resident of Hazelwood, Missouri. He owns his own small business, a car repair and body shop he’d been saving up to buy since he was a teenager. He has also been arrested more than 20 times. All but two of those arrests were for misdemeanors.
Morgan saved up for his business by fixing cars in his mother’s driveway. That required him to occasionally park cars on the street. That earned him parking tickets. He paid them when he could, but he occasionally missed deadlines. And that would lead to an arrest warrant.
All of this also put Morgan on the radar of local police. He’s a tall black man with dreadlocks. That made him easy to spot, and probably easy to profile. His unpaid parking tickets led not just to arrest warrants, but to the occasional suspension of his license. That led to more citations, although like many in the area, Morgan was sometimes pulled over and issued only a ticket for driving on a suspended license, or driving a car that wasn’t registered to him. (Morgan sometimes drove his clients’ cars to test them.) But there was no underlying traffic violation — which raises the question of why the officer pulled Morgan over in the first place, if it wasn’t to profile him. Those citations then led to more arrests.
Morgan was featured in my September investigation into the municipal courts system in St. Louis County. He’s a 29-year-old resident of Hazelwood, Missouri. He owns his own small business, a car repair and body shop he’d been saving up to buy since he was a teenager. He has also been arrested more than 20 times. All but two of those arrests were for misdemeanors.
Morgan saved up for his business by fixing cars in his mother’s driveway. That required him to occasionally park cars on the street. That earned him parking tickets. He paid them when he could, but he occasionally missed deadlines. And that would lead to an arrest warrant.
All of this also put Morgan on the radar of local police. He’s a tall black man with dreadlocks. That made him easy to spot, and probably easy to profile. His unpaid parking tickets led not just to arrest warrants, but to the occasional suspension of his license. That led to more citations, although like many in the area, Morgan was sometimes pulled over and issued only a ticket for driving on a suspended license, or driving a car that wasn’t registered to him. (Morgan sometimes drove his clients’ cars to test them.) But there was no underlying traffic violation — which raises the question of why the officer pulled Morgan over in the first place, if it wasn’t to profile him. Those citations then led to more arrests.
When Morgan finally opened his business, the harassment continued. Cops would show up at his garage and cite his employees for operating without a business license. Morgan has a license; his employees didn’t need one. But to get the citations dismissed, Morgan and his employees would have to go to court, which was held once a month, at night. If they missed their court date, they too would be hit with an arrest warrant. Wealthy people can hire an attorney to go in their stead, and to negotiate their way out of a citation. But neither Morgan nor his employees were wealthy. Sometimes, Morgan was given other citations that required the man from whom he rented the space for his garage to come to court to vouch for him. That put strain on the relationship between Morgan and his landlord.
Of course, this was all part the day-to-day harassment, fining, and arresting of black people in St. Louis County that was well-documented in the Justice Dept. report on Ferguson and in subsequent reports on St. Louis County by advocacy groups and media outlets.
There were two occasions in which Morgan was arrested for offenses that weren’t misdemeanors. Here’s the first, from my report:
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In 2011, Morgan had to show up for municipal court in Hazelwood to appear for some traffic violations. He had been to the court before, and recalled that on a previous occasion he had been told by a police officer that children weren’t permitted inside. Having just picked his kids up from school, Morgan spotted the girlfriend of a friend in the parking lot and pulled his truck up next to her. He asked her to keep an eye on his kids while he was in court. She agreed.
As Morgan walked toward the courthouse a police officer asked him the kids in the truck were his. He replied that they were. The officer asked him why he had left them alone. Morgan replied that he hadn’t, and that the woman parked next to him had agreed to watch them. By now, Morgan’s friend had returned, and started to leave.
“I can’t really blame them,” Morgan says from his home in Hazelwood. “No one around here wants to attract attention. You don’t want a police officer knowing who you are.”
Morgan pleaded with the police officer to flag down his friends, who he said would vouch for him. He says the officer then threatened to Taser him. Morgan put up his hands. The officer then arrested him for child endangerment. Morgan’s wife had to leave work to come pick up the kids, and Morgan spent the night in jail. He was fined $1,000, though both the fine and the charge were later reduced.
The incident still upsets Morgan — not even the arrest so much as that his children had to see it. “I’m a good father,” he says. “I own my own business. I provide for my kids. Do you know what it’s like for your own children to see you get arrested? For a cop to say, right in front of them, that he’s arresting you because you’re a bad parent?” |
The other incident involved a local police officer who Morgan says had been harassing him for months. On this occasion, the officer confronted Morgan because he was “trespassing” on a neighbor’s lawn. Morgan responded that he wasn’t trespassing, because the neighbors didn’t mind. Morgan says the cop moved to arrest him, and he lost his cool. He claims he never struck the police officer, but he does admit that he screamed at him. Once he did, he was hit with a Taser and arrested for assaulting a police officer. That charge was later dropped. (The neighbors back Morgan’s account of the entire incident, including his assertion that he never touched the cop.)
When Morgan told me that final story after about an hour-long interview, I was stunned. But not because Morgan lost his cool with the cop. I was stunned that it had taken him so long to do so. And that even then, he’d manage to restrain himself from physical violence. I’m not sure I’d have been able to say the same.
Morgan is no one’s definition of a “thug.” He’s a guy who breaks his back to keep up the business that supports his family, despite obstacles that, frankly, most white business owners don’t have to endure. For all he’s been through, he is remarkably composed. He deals with the daily harassment in a remarkably manner-of-fact way. He takes photos of his business and the cars outside it. He records all of his phone conversations and most in-person conversations he has with public officials. He has a laptop filled with nothing but photos, documents, and recordings should he ever need them as evidence. Engaging in such defensive preparations on a daily basis would drive a lot of people insane — or perhaps be an indication that they’re already there. He does it because he has to. As he put it, “You have to struggle just to catch up.” |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Wed May 06, 2015 8:33 pm Post subject: |
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The thing with that article is that a lot of the police conduct in it seems completely legitimate. If the city has an ordinance against parking on the street, and a fellow repeatedly leaves cars out on the street, and then repeatedly fails to pay the fine he knows is coming, then what's the city to do? If a fellow continues to drive after getting a suspended license, then what's the city to do? Should city ordinances and drivers licenses simply not exist? The author frets that the man's tall, Black body and dredlocks made him "probably easy to profile," but it was the serial municipal violations which probably concerned the police more. The author insists that even if Mr. Morgan was technically violating the law by driving with a suspended licenses or the like, there was still no reason to pull them over if he wasn't being profiled, but despite my lily-white skin I was also pulled over by the police not uncommonly in America despite no traffic violation being cited. The bar for getting pulled over by the cops in America is exceedingly low, especially if they have any sort of quota for issuing citations.
The purported harassment at his place of business is more troubling, but while the article mentions exactly how many times Mr. Morgan has been arrested, it is much more vague about the number of times officers have issued citations at his place of business; there would be a huge difference, for example, between four to five business-place citations or fourteen to fifteen, yet both could ostensibly fall under the loose language used, so why doesn't the article provide a figure? Maybe it's because the author didn't think it was necessary, or maybe it's because the actual figure wouldn't go along with the narrative of "unjust harassment," so the author kept it vague. I can't tell. But what I can tell is if you subtract all the actual, legitimate violations out of this article, what you're left with is:
1) An unfortunate anecdote about Mr. Morgan trusting a friend to watch his kids and being betrayed by that friend (but it's cool, he doesn't mind).
2) A case where Mr. Morgan screamed at a police officer who was himself evidently being overzealous. Though if his neighbor was present to see the scene play out, such that they could affirm that Mr. Morgan never hit the cop, why didn't the neighbor simply tell the officer that Mr. Morgan's presence was welcome? It's a confusing anecdote.
3) An unspecified number of business place citations which I assume are unfounded, but no actual information is provided which backs that assumption, so it's really only a spirit of maximal generosity which allows for it.
The author is right, Mr. Morgan doesn't sound like a thug. But he also hasn't really been treated like one either by the sounds of it: of the two felonies for which he was arrested, the former was reduced in court (presumably because they believed his story), and the latter was throw out outright. The fines and misdemeanor arrests, by contrast, all sound like they stem directly from his behavior. Far from being some sort of racist machine trying to ensnare him and lock him up in jail unjustly, it sounds like the system more or less worked in both cases. The only real outstanding issue here is how frequently the police cite his business, but I can't find that information, and it's hard to believe it couldn't have been probed more deeply in an hour-long interview. If it is both the case that Mr. Morgan is in full compliance with local ordinance (such that those citations are always in error), and that he is issued dozens of such citations, such that it's genuine harassment, then that would be problematic.
More generally, I'd agree that citations are a poor way to fund a local government, but one of the points of local government is that it's for the local populace to decide such matters for themselves. And Black residents are a part of that decision making process; when the author suggests, "Which means that the blacker the town, the more likely its residents are getting treated like ATMs for the local government," he's also indirectly acknowledging that these are municipalities in which Blacks have proportionally more voting power, and he directly acknowledges it later when he says, "Dissolving many of these towns seems like the most obvious solution, but that also means dissolving towns where blacks have significant representation in local government." The author suggests there are no easy answers, but I can't help but feeling like the first step towards an answer needs to be a deep, honest consideration of why the political process doesn't seem to offer any relief at all to these ostensible problems, even when the demographic plagued by them controls said process. |
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