Ongoing U.S Police Brutality and Corruption Discussion Thread

idk, you could maybe see it as some acknowledgement at least. im not really into coming down hard on every single micro inanity. BLM's very name ruffles people, cos just saying 'black' anything seems to come with baggage. there was some piece doing the rounds of a group of anon law students complaining to their university about a lecturer wearing a BLM t shirt, saying something like it was 'alienating'.

Ahem, non-colored people deserve to be advanced on a national level TOO.

I'm being glib. I do think there's a pretty great extent to which we all need to be more understanding of where other people are starting from if we ever have any hope of bridging the divides in this country. I'd like to think most of the 'black lives matter TOO' people are starting from a place where it isn't even a question that black lives matter but maybe don't understand why that's a thing that needs to be stated outright.

sometimes i think BLM should had a different name. good for drawing attention, straight to the point directness, but also they know its not really going to endear many people to the cause that easily.

"The endearing Fuzzle Wuzzles, a group centred around opposing the increasingly visible and punishment-free murder of African-Americans..."

er... it seems to have endeared/energized/spoken to like, millions of people?

besides, it isn't like butthurt white folk wouldn't have found a problem with any myriad of other names.

lol

"er... it seems to have endeared/energized/spoken to like, millions of people?"

wasnt denying that. just that anything with black in the name will eventually get accused of the usual stuff.

kinda feel like if you're starting from a place of wanting to not upset the apple cart, you're kinda rendering your movement toothless from the onset....

why cater to the thickheaded dummies who weren't going to get it anyway?

it is a super super powerful name imo. states forcefully and positively something that should be an obvious given, and in doing so points out that in so many situations and contexts it is not one. it asserts humanity in the face of terrible violence and injustices, righteously and unapologetically. it seems very dicey to start suggesting that if only the movement had adopted a more conciliatory, appealing/appeasing tone, then... etc etc. but i know you did couch your comment in a "sometimes i think" so i don't mean to pin all that on you.

but also the "they" here (the ones who ostensibly might have considered a different name) is unclear - it was a hashtag first, right? like, it became the name of the movement because it was popular; many many people who saw it felt it spoke to them, and adopted it too. or am i misremembering the sequence of events?

i'm a little fuzzy on how BLM evolved from a hashtag into an organized movement but i hadn't really considered that anyone really chose it as a "name"

xp

every successful civil rights movement had people telling them they were alienating potential allies with their rhetoric and would do better if they moderated their tone

"We Shall Overcome (with your permission, of course)"

but in all seriousness, there will always be factions of people that don't get it. these are the same assholes who, after Pulse shooting happened, said things like "I'm not putting a rainbow on my profile, I'm putting an American flag because it was 49 Americans who died, why the focus on the LGBT community (or the Latino community)?"

"if only the movement had adopted a more conciliatory, appealing/appeasing tone"

im not advocating they make the message or rhetoric moderate, just the name. but yeah, IIRC it just started as a hashtag.

can someone plz direct me to an accurate breakdown of people killed by US police this year? ive tried searching but cant seem to find one that i trust.

it's exactly the right name, the necessary name. that so many white people react negatively to it - a self-evident and utterly inoffensive truth - proves that.

ok. moving on.

in case no one has posted already -

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/08/dallas-murderers-killers-black-lives-matter

https://endnotes.org.uk/en/endnotes-brown-v-ferguson this long article gives a good history of the development of black lives matter

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database

guardian breakdown of those killed this year

i've seen several white people "clarifying" that "black lives matter actually means black lives matter TOO" which, while well intentioned, seems like another way of re-centering whites? maybe i'm being handwringy

― ejemplo (crüt), Monday, July 11, 2016 1:05 PM (59 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've seen people saying "there's no *only* in front of Black Lives Matter", which is maybe a more elegant way of refuting this idea that BLM is somehow saying that non-black lives don't matter? idk, maybe engaging with "are you saying that white lives don't matter" criticisms at all is giving too much ground.

Yeah, you're walking straight into "Why doesn't it say 'All' then?".

White people aren't used to being excluded.

everybody's going to deal with this shit in their own way, and i'm inclined to cut folks a great deal of slack for anything short of actually going to trump rallies and beating up old white ladies (pace george saunders). also, we really need to have different people dealing with these things in different ways. opposition to police brutality is not a united front.

i'm a pretty critical person by nature, but i can't find much to criticize about the name "black lives matter". this is not a name it's reasonable for a non-racist to take offense to. as such, i find it to be a nearly perfect vehicle for revealing white people's hidden prejudices. this is a necessarily traumatic experience.

objections to the name "black lives matter" can be addressed in a thousand different ways, because those objections are necessarily illogical and absurd. from this week alone, i like the cartoon of the stick man with the fire hose putting out the house that's not on fire ("all houses matter").

The people claiming that BLM ignores the white people killed by the police are not dedicating their lives to a movement that would focus on everyone (and I'd suggest such a movement would end up focussing on the same issues as BLM anyway). These aren't people who have an overriding desire for justice in their hearts, they are just the usual right wing do-nothing's who are upset that something isn't about them. See: men's rights groups protesting about every anti domestic violence campaign.

Last time I checked, Black Lives Matter is ahead of StillAdvance in media attention and total political victories. Maybe we should stop second guessing a movement that has been enormously successful at getting their message out.

I posted on FB this week a link to some paintings an artist friend of mine is auctioning off, with proceeds to be split between BLM and Assist the Officer, which helps the families of slain police officers. My racist mother-in-law, of course, had to comment, "Sorry, I don't support Black Lives Matter. I think ALL Lives Matter." Since she's a fundagelical Christian, I took a tip from something I saw on Twitter last week and asked her, "If you had been at the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus said 'Blessed are the poor in spirit,' would you have piped up and said 'Sorry, I think EVERYONE should be blessed?'"

Her response? "Everyone IS blessed, whether they know it or not." Way to miss the point, racist mother-in-law.

The only response I say that shut someone up was when a friend said to a skeptic on FB, "Saying 'let's focus on breast cancer research' is not to say, 'We're going to ignore every other form of cancer.'"

one of my friends posted a link to a wsj thing where you can see "blue facebook" and "red facebook" side by side, and i thought it was super interesting. because me being, basically, on "blue facebook", i tend to think that the difference between us is that i have logic and facts on my side. but looking at red facebook, you know, they think the same thing. so that's not the actual difference, that we're right and they're wrong. it's also not that they're angry and hateful, because blue facebook can be angry and hateful about a lot of things too.

the difference is, i hate to say it, that blue facebook uses glurge-language, and red facebook doesn't. now, i fucking hate glurge, have for decades, but looking at it side by side i came to the conclusion that the presence of glurge is the _one redeeming feature_ of blue facebook. blue facebook has the desire for uplift. they want and need to be touched, to be moved. red facebook doesn't.

and this difference, i think, a difference which i would roughly define as "openness to emotional experience", colors and limits the interaction between the two camps.

i've seen several white people "clarifying" that "black lives matter actually means black lives matter TOO" which, while well intentioned, seems like another way of re-centering whites?

How? It seems like you're saying that stating the problem implicitly centers white people and distracts from what we should be focusing on, which makes absolutely no sense to me.

White people aren't used to being excluded.

Black Lives Matter is not an exclusionary statement; it is a statement of focus.

1 im not saying 'what about other lives?!'
2 im not mad at the campaign or the cause
3 i said that SOMETIMES i wonder if some might find a different name less combative (though yes, this is a problem for others to deal with, and yes, i know its not necessarily the name, but what it 'brings up' for other people)

wtf are you talking about rushomancy, red-staters love the glurge

Yeah I always associated glurge with red state people. They want to be inspired too for the most part -- the whole mass of red america isn't made up of paranoid anti-government breitbart readers whose lack emotions outside of bile and fear. That is just a contingent

The "all lives matter" people are ridiculous and I don't know why we are still talking about them. I think they are mostly made up of white grandmas who don't want to face the possibility that the police aren't the good guys and well.... Ok. BLM won't be stopped by clueless people like that. The barriers to police reform are republican politicians and the police themselves.

In the meantime the typically classless timing on the part of these racist fucksticks:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/07/11/confederate-flag-flies-once-again-for-a-few-hours-at-the-south-carolina-statehouse/?hpid=hp_rhp-morning-mix_mm-story-d%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

...tempts one to lean toward "why cater to the thickheaded dummies who weren't going to get it anyway?" side.

Not all white people were on board with the civil rights movement and that was ok. You don't want racists or crypto racists on the side of an anti-racist movement anyway; the struggle is not to be inclusive toward them. The point is to change society.

I think the most charitable reading you can give of an "All Lives Matter" person is that s/he is one of those people who doesn't want to admit race is ever an issue. And even that head-in-sand mentality has a tendency to accompany racism, but often there is more direct racism behind "All Lives Matter." Giuliani said that "Black Lives Matter" is an "inherently racist" idea. He also said not too long ago that most black people are killed by blacks or something to that effect, and you often see the same people posting these two sentiments, plus also "asking questions" about what the shooting victim must have done wrong. The subtext is obvious -- black people are largely thugs, the ones who get shot by police definitely are, and I either don't believe that a black person could possibly be wrongfully killed by police as a result, or else I care so little for them that I don't care if it happens on occasion toward the greater purpose of cleaning up the streets or whatever. There are probably people out there who are worth explaining the problems with "All Lives Matter" to, and there are also a lot who I would not waste my time with.

And as Treeship says, it's silly to water down your message in order to try to get everyone on board. No movement ever has everyone on board, and you don't need everyone on board.

"Yeah I always associated glurge with red state people."

That was my assumption too, until I actually looked at things, and there is just no glurge there. It's all hatred, paranoia, and fear. Meanwhile Blue Facebook are dealing with their trauma by posting Justin Bieber videos.

"The "all lives matter" people are ridiculous and I don't know why we are still talking about them."

because they're not going to go away and we have to figure out what to do about them?

the media's love affair w/ Rudy Giuliani needs to be cured by sewing his mouth shut

White people aren't used to being excluded.

Black Lives Matter is not an exclusionary statement; it is a statement of focus.

― volumetric god rays (DJP), Monday, July 11, 2016 8:48 AM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That was kinda the point I was glibly trying to make. Some members of an unquestioned majority will see any movement that specifically addresses a demographic other than their own as inherently exclusionary. Which seems like one of the central reasons why BLM became a movement.

The "all lives matter" people are ridiculous and I don't know why we are still talking about them. I think they are mostly made up of white grandmas who don't want to face the possibility that the police aren't the good guys and well.... Ok. BLM won't be stopped by clueless people like that. The barriers to police reform are republican politicians and the police themselves.

Stop saying stupid shit like this. The people saying All Lives Matter look exactly like you and come from all across the country; hell, some of them look exactly like me. Turning them into a mythological strawman group so you can ignore them contributes nothing other than making yourself feel superior.

My first high school girlfriend is married to a retired police officer and posted the following message this morning, which reveals some interesting information coming from the police perspective of this and shows that a lot of what is missing here is being caused by self-segregation; it's harder to demonize a group of people when you know some of them (also fuck off if you're going to snipe about typos):

OK I'm sick in the heart right now with the state of racial affairs and attacks on the police in our country. I'm a white middle aged woman (shit when did that happen?) who some will think what does she know? Well here it goes . . .

Dan Perry was one of my first friends, not related to me or thrust upon me because our parents were friends. We met at the age of 4 in Ms. T_____'s preschool. We rode the school bus together discussing Tom and Jerry cartoons everyday K-2nd grade. Then our buss route split. We didn't meet again until 6th grade when my mom took me out of private school and placed me in public school with Dan. It took us until 7th grade to figure out we actually new each other before 6th grade. When Dan lost his older brother in 9th grade some very disgusting boys in school drew a nasty picture of the incident and threw it at me in science class. See everybody knew I really liked Dan, he was now my boyfriend and not just my friend. He was one of the very few students of color in my home town. Using racial slurs to describe the horrible accident his brother had encountered, the boys laughed handing me the picture. (Oh they were white boys.) I threw the picture back at them, tried to slap one, and buzzed out of the room with tears in my eyes hitting the door right as the bell rang to dismiss class. I went to the principals, but because it was my word against 2 boys and I was too emotional and threw the picture back at them, I had lost the evidence. Nothing was done to them, at least by administration nothing was done to them. I believe carma took over with the help of a few friends. This moment was an eye opener and has had lasting effects in my life.

My friend, co-worker, and roomate in college, M______, took me to a local store in Mankato known for following customers of color around to catch them shop lifting. We went in, walked a few isles together picking up a clerk tail, and then split up. She was followed because she was dark skinned Indian (from Guyana). Again had a profound impact on me.

In college, I loudly and verbally admonished 2 white males in the law enforcement program on two separate occasions. One who stood in the student union on campus every day and heckled women on their way to class, work, lunch, whatever. He made rude, gross, verbal advance to my good friend and roommate T_____. When I finished, security was just showing up, and they asked him to leave. BTW he did become a cop but washed out quickly. The second, was a man who stood making comments about a recent rap victim on campus. It was spring and a serial rapest was attacking women at night sometimes following them to their rooms. His latest victim had read hair. He proceeded to make rude comments about firey read headed women. (I was actually waiting for J______ to get out of class with this person, but he was inside talking with a professor at their break time, instead.). I crossed the corridor and using all the courage I could told him exactly what I thought of him, the fact that he was going to be an officer, and that does not sit well with me or help society. I made such a scene that the Law Enforcemnet officers came, listened, then called him into their classroom. I don't know what happened to him, but damn it felt good knowing he knew what I felt. Again these incidents had a profound effect on me.

My husband, JM, became a MN Peace Officer in 1997 for the City of Eagan. He worked the job for 5 years, before leaving the force. He worked the dog shift 11 pm - 7 am. We married in 1999 and I enrolled in the family academy at the PD. A program for mainly spouses of peace officers to teach them about the stressors of the job. On one class night I watched the same training video, which my husband watched when going through his 4 year law enforcement program, that shows officer, after officer, being shot while making a routine traffic stop. We learned that it is the routine traffic stop that is most often the most dangerous for all officers. In that video I watched officers of every color and gender being shot by criminals of every color (most were men though). Again this had a hugely profound effect on me. I've just married this man. You mean I could loose him while he pulls a person over for speeding, a busted tail light, etc. If this happens can I survive it? I had nightmares for 5 years! He was excellent at his job though. He advised the police explorers, helped deliver a few babies, picked up a severed head off the highway, had to tell families their loved ones were never coming home again, placed children with social services (sometimes several times, same kids), investigated suspicious activity complaints (some were nothing, some were not.). He pulled his gun several times (He Never Talked about it!). I didn't find out how many times until after he left the force. His beat included a place known as Westcott Square. This area contained a high percentage of low income or Section 8 housing. When cops showed up (because they were called) The tenants of Westcott (mostly African American, some Somalli, Asian, and white, yelled slurs at all the police on the force not just the white cops. They threw rocks, threatened their lives, spit, etc. But my guy was well trained, he took it all in stride, always did his best to give respect even when he clearly was being disrespected. He talked some about these experiences, but did not dwell on them. He tried to think about those who were grateful for his presence and help rather than those who wanted him dead because he was a white man in blue.

I am aching because I can understand how a cop can freak out when a person who's just told them they have a gun is reaching into their pocket for the permit. I saw a cop on the video killed in a similar curcumstance. Cops deal with mostly criminals who can lie to them strait faced in a calm and respectable tone, and in the next second try to attack them or take their life.

Yet I am also sickened at the thought that an upstanding citizen and yes a man who happens to be black is also dead, Philandro Castille. His trying to comply with the request of license and registration (and his conceal and carry permit) to be presented to police, ended his life.
I won't feel bad for a criminal killed by police no matter what color his skin is! I don't want to throw the book at an officer who asked a person not to move once they learned they had a gun. That's part of thier training!

We need our police departments to screen officers routinely to make sure they are fit for the job. In a country where we have freedom of speech and religion, it's difficult to not have racist individuals end up as cops (Or teachers, doctors, lawyers, etc.). If you are a racist cop, take off the damn blue uniform!!! You can't protect and serve only the parts of society you like. I hurt so bad for the Castille family but I also Ache for the police officer and his family.

To those who disrupted what was suppose to be a peaceful protest on I-94, shame on you!!! Violence is not the answer. There, I've said my thoughts for now. If you read this whole thing sorry it got so long. Dan if you read this and are still reading, know I think of you often and very fondly. You have a beautiful family and I wish you peace and safety.

My biggest takeaways from this are:

- We need to review how police officers are being trained.
- People with deep ties to the police are not a monolith and communication with them is a must.

Not all white people were on board with the civil rights movement and that was ok. You don't want racists or crypto racists on the side of an anti-racist movement anyway; the struggle is not to be inclusive toward them. The point is to change society.

re: talking to "all lives matter" people, it seems like there's a difference between altering the central message of the movement to be palatable to them (which I don't think anyone here is advocating) and, say, white people pushing back when their white relatives and friends make "all lives matter" arguments, that seems like a situation where it maybe *is* appropriate to use "there is no only in front of BLM" arguments, and these may be ppl who have some knee jerk defensiveness or have swallowed the "all lives matter" line without thinking that much about it, but could still potentially be talked round into being supportive of BLM and their goals even if they are maybe not going to "join the movement" in an active way.

soref, i agree with you in theory, but in practice i've had to stop talking to p. much all of my "all lives matter" friends & family. in some cases, "all lives matter" does reflect a sincere political naivete, an indicator of a sheltered life, that, you know, is educable. in other cases, however, "all lives matter" is a statement masking a deeper, apparently irremediable sickness. you start probing it further and you find people who are deeply and genuinely disturbed, people who are insistent that they are perfectly fine and that it's everybody else who's the problem. nothing i can do about that one. i have to cut them off.

In a general sense, I feel like fostering understanding and curbing knee-jerk divisiveness is a net positive. I do have a hard time interacting with 'all lives matter' people but I'm trying to remember that people have different experiences and different levels of exposure to people and ideas outside of their own sphere. Sitting with those people and trying to explain to them why BLM is a thing, whether you're ultimately successful or not, feels much more constructive than just saying, "shut up, you ignorant douchebag." It's tough to navigate these minefields but it feels worth it. And as a white person who other white people are more likely to speak candidly wrt their thoughts on these issues, I feel kinda duty-bound to make the effort.

But, yeah, I'm talking more about people who are ignorant rather than hateful. I don't know how to engage with the latter and don't feel particularly inclined to do so.

xpost - that was a good post DJP

that WSJ "blue feed, red feed" thing doesn't (and doesn't pretend to) summarize the entirety of facebook. you can't draw broad conclusions about how conservatives use the site from it.

I foolishly engaged with some rando on facebook recently over this and was constantly accused of "parroting arguments" when in fact I was citing statistics &/or referring to high-profile events over here in consensus reality