We also need a Congressional investigation in the woeful state of police body cams, which appear to be utterly unreliable. They cease to function somehow, they fall off at the most…inopportune…moments. Why, who knows but that if they had been working correctly, the full and whole innocence of the officers involved would have been proven and they could bask in the applause of a grateful nation.
I am white, so I can’t speak for black people. But I would guess that even African Americans don’t disagree that poorer, inner-city black neighborhoods can be extremely dangerous places for black people to live and police officers to work. What disappoints many black people is that rather than feeling safer when the police arrive, they don’t feel safer at all. On the contrary, many of them feel a heightened sense of anxiety, fearing that they will have a gun drawn on them simply on the basis that they resemble someone else in the community. The videos that have surfaced over the past few years show us why this fear exists.
But I think we’re missing the point if all we do is look at police - African American interactions. Blacks are still dealing with the centuries of slavery and Jim Crow, of institutionalized racism that were felt on so many levels for so long, and are still felt both in ways that are direct and indirect. Yes, black communities are dangerous and there is a broken culture in some cities. But how did it get to this point? The way out is education and training, but black literacy was actually prohibited during the slavery era, and it was effectively reinforced through segregation and placing blacks in a permanent underclass, from which many of them have not escaped. No education and job training. Mostly inadequate opportunities for careers and promotions. No access to social networks that matter. No access to credit. I don’t disagree that now individual black people have choices and that far too many of them make bad ones, particularly as it relates to things like unwed pregnancies and a general lack of preparedness as parents. But again, this is institutionalized racism, the intentional creation of a race-based lower caste that has existed for a long time. Things have arguably improved, but the pace of progress has been slow.
Police factor into this because they are the agents of the government. They are the ones who come in and put the boots on the necks of those individuals who fail to escape the gravity of the situation they were born into. It’s in some ways analogous to how subjects in various colonies felt toward British soldiers during their imperial era. None of this in any way excuses the assassination of officers who probably were motivated to fight crime and enforce the law, never once viewing themselves as agents of oppression. The terrorists who did those should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. But if all we do is punish and use this as an excuse to tune out and ignore otherwise legitimate grievances, then we’re moving backwards not forwards.
I guess the broader point here is that we really need to tone down the vitriolic rhetoric and try to gain a better understanding of each other. The discourse today is hyper-aggressive, filled with expletive-laced bullying, threats, and taunts. One of the threads on this site asked “Is Fox News really that bad,” and the answer to that question is, yes, it absolutely is. But not just Fox. You could say the same for all of the major networks like MSNBC, CNN, and the like, as well as the radio talk show hosts, the bloggers, and pod-casters who profit at the expense of civil discourse. We’re losing the ability to be civil. This is the result.
The police are hyper militarized due to the racist policies surrounding the drug war that was largely responsible for creating a permanent underclass. And the shooting in Dallas directly plays into the hands of several white supremacy movements. Several acts of violence like the attempted 2011 bombing of the MLK parade in Spokane were direct violent actions committed with the explicit intent of inciting a race war. There are dozens of examples.
The same xenophobia and intolerance that drives this has also resulted in the Brexit vote and the success of Trump’s campaign.
The police are not just agents of the government, the are agents of the broader movement and the only realistic outcome that will come from this event is it escalate the problem.
There has been zero movement to take action that will solve the root problems only actions that will confirm the pre-existing beliefs of those whom are pushing for this goal.
This has been true for longer than any of us have been alive. The temperance movement was largely directed at urban populations flush with new, predominantly Catholic and the drug war was directed at minority populations. The stated goals of the temperance movement was not gained through prohibition but through women’s rights. The right to vote, the right to inherited property, access to education, access to jobs and access to family planning are what moved us towards that goal.
But those changes are slow to happen and the electorate is fickle. I see no attempt for groups and governments to address injustice and to give power to those whom are marginalized. I only see the will to play into the hand of those whom are winning.
The xenophobia and bigotry that drives the unscientific, arbitrary human construct of race is a symptom of the problem and not the root cause. And while it may my own personal biases I see no real efforts to address this root cause.
I don’t think the police are militarized because of racism, to be frank. Cops were plenty damn racist in the 60s and 70s. I think racism is an unfortunate reality of policing in many areas, but doesn’t easily explain the 1990s-Present militarization and change of police doctrine.
From everything I’ve seen it traces back to the focus on “officer safety” that started around this time. On first glance, who could have a problem with officer safety? But it’s not so simple. Police agencies have received more and more “tactical training” and situational training, and this training has largely been developed with basically a focus on keeping cops alive. Which again, what’s wrong with that? Well, it’s lead to the mind set that a cop’s job, their primary job, is to “get home safely each night.” This creates a behavior and mindset that is very different from the community based policing that had been a norm from the formation of police departments in the 19th century up into the 1990s.
While that doesn’t represent a golden age of happiness, fuzziness and light (lots of problems existed) back in that era a cop worked a patrol area, often on foot, and got to know his community. That doesn’t mean he was always a benevolent figure, but it meant his primary job was to enforce law and keep that community safe. The officer-safety focused training has created a mindset that a cop isn’t going on patrol in a community, patrol is now seen as more of a paramilitary exercise, and you’re not on patrol in a community, you’re in patrol in “enemy territory.” The people you are policing are the enemy.
This entire mindset is entirely unnecessary, and leads to bad results. No one would argue cops shouldn’t be as safe as possible at their work, but the mindset shouldn’t be focused on that to the point that they’re no longer cops but soldiers.
[QUOTE=asahi]
I am white, so I can’t speak for black people. But I would guess that even African Americans don’t disagree that poorer, inner-city black neighborhoods can be extremely dangerous places for black people to live and police officers to work. What disappoints many black people is that rather than feeling safer when the police arrive, they don’t feel safer at all. On the contrary, many of them feel a heightened sense of anxiety, fearing that they will have a gun drawn on them simply on the basis that they resemble someone else in the community. The videos that have surfaced over the past few years show us why this fear exists.
[/QUOTE]
I have to wonder, however, how much of that is perception based on the fact that everything is news today, and how much is reality. Everyone seems to ‘know’ that black people are less safe today, especially from police, than in the past. But I honestly have to question this. Looking back at crime stats in the past (and these are just the OFFICIAL stats, not unreported violence done to black people by police and others), it seems that there is actually a lot less violent crime and less actual police shootings today than in the past (though, granted, it does seem to have ticked up a bit in the last year or so). I think that it’s a perception of violence, especially police violence against black people due to the 24 hour news cycle and prevalence of video phones and other non-establisment/media ways that such information gets to the public today.
This isn’t to say that black people (and hispanics, IMHO) don’t have real, justified issues with police violence or with focused or directed police harassment…just that, it seems to me, that a lot of this stems from a few events blown up in the media and a perception that this means such events are much worse today than in the past. It’s like white people saying that the country is going to hell in a hand basket and crime is out of control, that the gangs are out of control, etc…things that just aren’t backed up when one looks at the actual crime statistics during the 60’s, 70’s and especially 80’s (and, IMHO, the unreported incidents that almost certainly occurred by even more prevalently white police forces against minorities in the 50’s, 40’s, 30’s, 20’s, etc etc). It would be interesting to see if the actual data supports the perception you mention here.
I honestly have to question it, too: who is “everyone” that “seems to ‘know’ that black people are less safe today, especially from police, than in the past”? Where have you seen this assertion or claim or even speculation?
Not so much outrage that their situation has gotten worse, just that it still exists.
Joe Walsh is a worthless piece of hyena shit.
What does it mean, “hyena shit”?
For the record, I don’t think that blacks are less safe today than they were in the 1960s, and I doubt many blacks actually feel that way, either.
But so what? Less safe compared to the 1960s? Really, so what? That’s setting the bar low, don’t you think? At the end of the day, black people watch YouTube videos of white male law students walking around with firearms in plain sight and they get the benefit of the doubt. They see a half-white and half-latino guy getting the benefit of the doubt after killing Trayvon Martin, even though it is beyond obvious that he is the one who created the ‘crisis’ and fatal confrontation in the first place. And yet if a black man says to a police officer at a routine traffic stop "I just want to let you know, I have a firearm, and I have a license " – BAM! Dead. A similar incident happened to a black motorist in Florida (I think), who was stranded on the side of the highway.
Blacks are still reminded on a regular basis that they don’t have the same rights as whites. Frankly, reminding them that they’re a lot safer than their grandparents who got hanged and burned alive is not much consolation. I doubt it would be for anyone.
One problem is that we have weakened the public sector and we’ve weakened unions, which makes officers feel undervalued – understandably.
But we need a real focus on police training. I don’t know if it’s still the case but the LAPD actually went from cowboy Darryl Gates to being a model for how the nation can improve relations between the force and the hood. I don’t know if they’re still a model, but we need a nationwide transformation. Training needs to be overhauled, both in terms of threat assessment and response to threats.
It means…like really shitty.
When I first heard about the Dallas shootings last night, I was actually beginning to entertain the thought that some sort of long slide down into civil conflict was beginning. My attitude wasn’t improved by reading my Facebook feed, where several ‘friends’, who had not shown strong signs of irrationality previously, seemed to be enthusiastically reposting the sorts of fascistic sentiments one might find on Stormfront.
I have to say, however, that I’ve been highly impressed so far with the level of discussion in this thread, especially given that it’s the Pit. So, maybe the country’s not quite on the precipice just yet. Good on y’all.
Never see any flies buzzing hyena shit. It’s that bad!
Thanks.
You keep saying “more evidence, don’t decide”, but anybody who saw the video of Sterling’s death has enough evidence to determine the police fucked up and killed a man for no justifiable reason. I just thought I would see how you react when you read something as ridiculous as what you keep posting.
Yes, ambushing police is undoubtedly wrong and I don’t need anymore evidence than what is in the news to determine that.
Killing tazed men who are prone on the ground with two police officers pinning them down is undoubtedly wrong and I don’t need anymore evidence than what is in the news to determine that.
Yeah, when this first started the reports implied it was 4 or more people. Three snipers and one ground level shooter, something like that. Now they say he acted alone, I guess he started shooting from an elevated position and then started shooting on ground level.
Still, the fact that an army reservist who wasn’t a combat soldier could assault 12 different cops by himself is kind of shocking. Another sad part is that the Dallas police, from what I’ve heard of them, are a respectful police force. They treat the public with respect and have initiated various de-escalation training as well as training to deal with the mentally ill. They are not a force full of unaccountable criminals (ie, the Dallas police are not the ones going around committing crimes and getting off scot free).
Hey, let’s just leave the verdict on these cops to you then. You have all the evidence you need, clearly an investigation is totally unnecessary. Inbred Mm domesticus has spoken.* Fiat justitia ruat caelum*!
They arrested three people who they said were not being cooperative. “Not being cooperative” apparently means they had no idea what the cops were asking them about. They were later released.
Can you link to some examples of this? Seriously curious to see how Obama has been stirring it up; he has always seemed pretty cautious with these types of events to me.