Facts often get overlooked when white cop kills black youth. According to the cop, it wasn't a matter of race, according to the black community....it was. We've had several cases lately of blacks getting shot by white cops that were rather unjust, so it fuels the flame...

Facts do get overlooked if not completely ignored don't they? "We've had several cases lately of blacks getting shot by white cops that were rather unjust, so it fuels the flame..." Statements like that do not contain one fact. It wasn't the white cop nor was it the black citizen. I think it we who complain and point fingers the without knowing the facts are the ones who fuel the fires of racisim, nobody else. I suggest protest, strive, make demand for a better flow of information from the investigation to quell speculation and fairy tales.

My question still stands what or who has made this case an issue of race? My answer is us.

Well, you missed the entire point, real or imagined, if a person thinks it's real....it's real. It is a fact they're numerous instances of blacks being unjustly shot or attacked with overwhelming force. It can be a race issue or a crime issue, but to the black community.....it's a race issue. Heck, I still live in a generation when law enforcement lynched blacks, it hasn't been that long. Perception is reality, that's something we have to deal with.

Racism very often is claimed not to be an issue of race by those practicing it. ;)

However, it is an attitude working at a much more subtle, subconscious level.

It is not the issue of cop versus suspect anyway, but the social and communal and national cicumstances that a.) allow these cop-shoots-black situations so often to take place, and b.) that serve as a trigger for such immense displays of riots as well, but the whole cultural climate that allows to go up so easily.

Some years ago one board member had the nerve to clean any claim for racism still being persistent in society off the table by saying that apartheid had been formally ended: racism gone. A paper-believer, obviously - but paper has endless patience. Reality however forms up in people's minds and by subjective interpretation and suggestive intellectual input. It is here were attitudes reside and attributions are being linked to objects of sensory perception.

Not in wanted political formal or legal declarations. Formally, apathheid I gone, yes, history books and official forms say so.

Reality seems to tell a different story, though.

I think the problem here is the fact that you're 21 times more likely to be shot by a police officer in the US if you're black.
That's why race is being brought into it. :yep:

Reading https://twitter.com/YesYoureRacist 's retweets is a good way to eliminate all doubt of the prevalence of racism in this world.

A good way to eliminate your faith in humanity as well...

So what's the likelihood someone is an armed gangbanger thug by race? Just curious.

According to FBI stats of arrests in 2012:

9,390,473 in total
6,502,919 White
2,640,067 Black
135,165 American Indian or Alaskan native
112, 322 Asian or Pacific Islander

• In 2012, 69.3 percent of all individuals arrested were white, 28.1 percent were black, and 2.6 percent were of other races.
• Of all juveniles (persons under the age of 18) arrested in 2012, 65.2 percent were white, 32.2 percent were black, and 2.5 percent were of other races.
• Of all adults arrested in 2012, 69.7 were white, 27.6 percent were black, and 2.7 percent were of other races.
• White individuals were arrested more often for violent crimes than individuals of any other race, accounting for 58.7 percent of those arrests.
• The percentages of black adults and white adults arrested for murder were similar, with 49.3 percent being black and 48.3 percent being white.
• Black juveniles accounted for 51.5 percent of all juveniles arrested for violent crimes. White juveniles accounted for 61.6 percent of all juveniles arrested for property crimes.
• Of the juveniles arrested for drug abuse violations, 74.0 percent were white.
• White juveniles accounted for 55.2 percent of juveniles arrested for aggravated assaults.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr...decoverviewpdf

So if you weight those numbers by census roughly a quarter of the population is making half the violence.

Isn't that always the way? The loudest ones get all the attention.

What is the real truth about this?

The Policeman say one thing, the others witness say several other things about what they have seen.

If I should believe some of my FB-friends the policeman was totally innocent
While others say the policeman was guilty as charged.

I can't say what is the truth here

I can only say that the way some of these protestant act is no way acceptable.

Markus

I think right now whether Wilson was correct in his actions is no longer the issue. In fact I don't think it's really been the issue all along, but it has been the tip of the iceberg, the ignition to the gunpowder if you like.
The issue is the tension between white and black races within certain areas of the US and how this affects the way that black people are perceived by white people, including white law enforcement officers.
Naturally talking heads on both sides have gotten into the fray and raised tensions for their own benefit, people and organisations like the KKK, and Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and so forth. In a way, they have a keen interest in keeping the divide wide, otherwise they find themselves out of a job. Thus stoking up riots and such forth which can be perceived by white people as "blacks making crime again" is in their interest. However, equally as Martin Luther King pointed out "A riot is the language of the unheard" and there are plenty of people in America, black and white, who feel that they are unheard, that they have been dropkicked out of the political focus and that the people in power no longer speak for them.
As I have repeatedly stated in this thread, people who feel that they have lost the trust of the government, the law enforcement agencies and the justice system will feel that they have nothing left to lose by undertaking violence against the said institutions, and indeed, anything they can get their hands on to vent their anger and frustration out on.
Then, of course, you have to add into the mix those who just love a good riot and the chance to be violent, and then you add the young and impressionable who get caught up in the atmosphere of the event and then you have what's happening in Ferguson.
It's not just one criminal element, it's a whole melting pot of different viewpoints, emotions and attitudes, however the most prevailing mood amongst them is anger and hopelessness...and those are powerful and destructive emotions.

Conflicting witness testimony was a big factor why the Grand Jury voted not to return an indictment. Some of the witnesses not only contradicted their own previously given statements and/or testimony, a number of them actually recanted their testimony when placed before the Grand Jury under oath. This, and a number of other factors, resulted in no indictment...

Guilty as charged? The officer has never been formally charged for any of his actions and, as I recall, there is that nagging issue of "innocent until proven guilty". The purpose of a Grand Jury is not to determine guilt, it is determine if the state, in the form of local and statewide law enforcement (DAs), has the ability to bring charges against an individual or individuals. The Grand Jury does not assess guilt in any way. It merely looks at the evidence and information supplied by the state and rules on whether a charge or charges should be brought and the case should go to trial. The process is a more formal and painstaking version of a preliminary hearing a person who is charged in "regular" criminal matters goes through. In a preliminary hearing, a single judge hears the prosecution present the state's case against the defendant(s), hears a rebuttal by the defense, and then rules if there is any legal impairment for te case to go to a formal trial...

In the case of the Ferguson Grand Jury, it was an unusual situation: the normal, common procedure is for the DA to only lay out the evidence and information required to sway the jury to return and indictment. There is no defense presented. The Ferguson DA, however, took the additional step of presenting evidence and information that would have been helpful to the defense, if the case went to trial. While this is not unprecedented, it is highly unusual. It would be safe to say the DA went out of his way to bring as much information as possible, bot pro and con to the Grand jury...


<O>

Thank you for explaining it for me.



Have just seen the Danish news about the situation in Ferguson. this time it was not so much about the shooting, but about alternative "TV-channels"

In this program some person from Info wars was interviewed by the Danish journalist and so was many more and they all said that the authorieties controlled the mainstram media.

Sorry for this little offtopic detour


Markus

I saw that interview last night from the other side, the infowars guy had just finished having his head torn off by a masked black guy for calling the people who torched the buildings 'terrorists', it was as he was walking away from that (after spending a good half an hour travelling the backstreets looking for teargas canisters to prove there was a government cover up on them using tear gas [Alex Jones, what can I say? :har:]).

That being said though, it says a lot when more information is available through volunteer run information gathering sources such as reddit than is available in the mainstream media. I think that this is the age where the citizen based news overtakes the corporations.
Of course the trouble there is filtrating the rubbish from the actual facts, a problem we have seen with the news coming out of Ukraine, reddit is usually fairly good with this, but it can vary.