I’m sure that’s the case, but why take a stand against one injustice and not the other? Why commit violent acts against police officers when you know their beholden to at least a degree of restraint and a rule of law. They’re afraid of cops shooting them down, but they’ll throw rocks at officers, breaking the cop car windows and over turn the vehicles?
Again, I feel it’s easier thing to do.
I think many in the community I’m referring to have either strong ties to gangs, or view the gangs as made up of members of their own community, so they look the other way when it comes to any criticism or actions toward them. Many times when someone is killed in a gang related shooting, in public no one comes forward. In fact, at a police protest someone in the crowd was shot in a drive-by and not a single person came forward as a witness or with any information.
Of course. No one in any threads here has suggested that black people bring on disparate treatment because of their actions, or anything like that. No one at all has suggested that black people are intrinsically genetically more likely to be less intelligent or more aggressive. How could I ever think such a thing?
Right. None of the protesters actually care about the disparate treatment – they just want to loot. That’s why only a tiny portion of the protesters are actually violent.
I too wonder what the protesters hope to accomplish. Is it to change the make up of the local police force? The easiest way to do that is to be in charge of the local government. If they want a change in local government, they should be out registering people to vote, finding and running candidates for mayor and city council, and planning get out the vote rallies for the next election. In Ferguson, this will be in about six months, early April next year. How senseless destruction of your neighbors property helps the situation is incomprehensible.
That’s sad to hear. Even worse is that in some of the comments I read, they blame the boy and his parents for cultivating the “gang culture,” I’m assuming because the kid is black.
Cops shoot 17 year old white kid who was pointing a wii remote
It’s not just black kids getting shot.
That said I think in age of gun shooting massacres like that of Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, etc, and the prevalence of teenage gangs that murder people for wearing the wrong color, that people wouldn’t allow children to be playing with airsoft guns that look like the real thing. If I saw a teenager in my community walking around with what looked like a real rifle or hand gun, I’d call the cops too.
That said, I think their should be a debate on police procedure when dealing with these situations. I understand that the police can’t put risk to themselves by waiting for a possible criminal to shoot them first. But I wonder, couldn’t they use a bullhorn and keep a very safe distance away from the child when arriving on the scene?
Exactly. And if you feel the police don’t represent you, why not join the police force to make a difference in your community, or at least encourage others to do so?
I can buy that. But if you follow that logic, there would be no protesting at all. On the other hand, if a community os going to take personal the ramifications that befall one individual—and act on it—then they need to justify their grievance and their actions.
I don’t see how this is the case.
For the majority of protesters who have not engaged in anything violent or criminal, this certainly seems to be the case – they are protesting, among other things, disparate treatment of black people by the justice system.
If it’s brought on by their actions, it’s not disparate treatment, it’s treatment that is entirely fair. The police are not expected to treat someone who complies with their instructions, and someone who violently resists arrest, in the same fashion.
I’m aware that those threads exist, but I’ve not participated in them. I’ve not seen any mention of such things in any thread to do with Ferguson, or any other thread in which I’ve debated with you.
Come to think of it, there was one person arguing that in one of the Zimmerman threads, but he was fairly quickly banned. But it’s not been any part of the debates about either issue.
What happened to Michael Brown has nothing to do with disparate treatment. There has been far more investigation into this than most other killings. What should have happened, going by normal standards, is the prosecutor should have seen that there was insufficient evidence to get a conviction, and it should have stopped there. Due to the extremely strong feelings in the community, it was investigated extremely thoroughly, and the decision on whether to charge made by a neutral party. If anything, the treatment has disproportionately favoured the black community - and yet people are still protesting, and others are still rioting and looting.
Civil Disobedience is a specific term with a specific meaning.
Rioting and burning the cars of random strangers has nothing whatsoever to do with Civil Disobedience, and it shits on the legacy of Ghandi and MLK to conflate them.
The disparate treatment that’s most heavily protested, such as disproportionate convictions though innocent, is not “entirely fair” and is not due to their actions.
Why is protesting objectionable? We seem to agree that there are disparities in sentencing and convictions of innocent men, though we disagree on other disparities. Isn’t protesting appropriate for such injustices? Rioting and looting are not, of course, but that’s just a small portion of the protests.
I’m confused. I’m not even following this story very closely, but from you’re OP it seems you do not understand what “Civil Disobedience” is. Is that what is happening in Ferguson? If so, why are you calling it “violence”?
Because the incident wouldn’t take on larger significance than what happened to one person, Michael Brown. And that would be judged narrowly, not broadly. Certainly not so broadly that entire communities in Ferguson and across the country would feel aggrieved.
And this points to the very dangers thing about mobs: the lack of individual accountability. I watched the activities last night, mostly on CNN and MSNBC. I saw a lot of thuggish behavior and very little “We shall overcome” type activity. Now, I’m positive that the thuggish behavior gets more camera time, but I have a few questions:
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If you know, or have a pretty good expectation that a protest you will be involved in will be violent, and you still choose to be a part of the protest, do you bare any responsibility for the violence that occurs?
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This is a bit uncomfortable to ask, but why does this type violence seem to come from one type of community—poor and black? Is coverage of all the other violent protests with looting and indiscriminate vandalism being suppressed some how?
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Of the people that actually protesting last night ion Ferguson, what percent would you say displayed behavior that we should hold up as proper, and what percentage would you say we should point to and say is improper. And my question assumes that you would agree that any behavior that demonstrated looting, vandalism or other violence would clearly be characterized as improper. If I’m wrong about that, please explain. Personally, I have no feel for the percentages. But there seemed to be, in sheer numbers, an awful lot of people that were thuggish assholes.
So, you’re cool with a 12 year old kid being gunned down on a playground while playing? Did you see the thug’s picture? Seriously? Look at it. You happy he was gunned down for playing?
What disparity? Brown’s killing was investigated as thoroughly as possible, and he was judged not to have been murdered by a neutral party. And yet there are still protests because Wilson isn’t being tried. I don’t see the justification for any protest there - let alone the violence and looting that’s happening.
It seems to me that the protesters are calling for the sentencing and conviction of an innocent man, and I can’t for the life of me understand why you’re defending that. Honestly, the only reason I could see for doing so would be “because it’s happened to black people, it should happen to this white man”, and for all our disagreements I know you’re better than that.
Who said anything about being happy? It’s an unfortunate situation, but the kid’s age and his baby face don’t change the fact that he responded to a legal command to put his hands up by drawing what looked for all the world to be like a live firearm, and had in fact deliberately been altered to look more realistic. Cops aren’t telepaths - if it had been a real gun, and the kid’s intent had not been “playing”, neither of which they had any way of knowing, they could have been dead themselves in a matter of seconds unless they took action. The fact that it’s a tragic scenario doesn’t mean it isn’t justified.
Civil disobedience also means accepting the punishment you receive for that disobedience, the point being to highlight the injustice. Basically the opposite of what is achieved by fighting the police.
Dude, it was a playground. He was at the playground playing. He was twelve. Didn’t you play when you were twelve?
Yes, but I didn’t point unlawfully altered replica firearms at people while doing so or reach for one when told to put my hands up, because I was taught that that’s a good way to get a real gun pointed at you.
If a 12-year-old pointed a gun at you, would you wait until he started shooting to decide whether to be afraid or not?
And the police just showed up and shot the kid because he was playing…is that what you are saying? It sounds like the picture you are trying to paint.
Reading the account in the article…it’s a bit more complicated than that.