Here we go again

[GoldenRivet]

http://news.yahoo.com/justice-for-ma...122825386.html

Johnson, a 20-year-old Italian and media studies major at UVA, was charged with obstruction of justice without force, and public swearing or intoxication early Wednesday. The arrest was captured on video and in photos that showed the third-year student calling the Alcoholic Beverage Control agents who arrested him "racists."

more than 1,000 students gathered at the University of Virginia campus Wednesday night to demand justice for Martese Johnson, a black undergrad who appeared bloodied during an arrest outside a bar in Charlottesville

Well, Im convinced simply on this snippet of an article that, Martese did nothing wrong and the Charlottesville police showed up and just beat up and arrested the first black guy they could find because it was a day of the week ending in the letter "Y" if for no other reason.

this is getting ridiculous... soon, cities will burn, thousands will riot, marches will be organized all because of some slightest injustice - be it real or imagined - that is carried out against a black guy.

white dude cut a black dude off in traffic - burn down half of Chicago

white dude stole a black dude's parking spot - March on whatever

White dude shot and killed a black dude in the middle of an armed robbery - start a twitter campaign and hashtag the crap out of everybody

are white people not arrested by the police and hauled into jails with blood on their faces?

are white people not shot dead by officers?

sure they are, but generally you have an entire society of white folks saying that the POS got what they had coming thank the officer and get back to whatever it is they were doing

when it happens "on the other side of the tracks" however, society is suddenly imbalanced, injustice only happens the brown people, white privilege is to blame etc

so where does madness of this kind end? and where does personal responsibility begin?

If the police single out the African-American (i abhor that term by the way) segment of our society then how is it that i can personally know so many of them who haven't ever even had a run in with the authorities outside of a speeding ticket identical to the ones white folks get?

If there is so much white privilege in the United States these days, how is it that 3 of my last 5 bosses were black men and women easily earning twice the annual salary i make?

is it that socioeconomic condition is color blind?

is it that justice is color blind?

I always look at these images with a grain of salt. I have people in my family who i haven't seen in ten years because they are still in prison. on the other end of the spectrum i have a good number of police in my family. an astoundingly high number of injuries sustained during an arrest are self inflicted. ie... you did that to yourself trying to escape through that plate glass window... you did that to yourself jumping off the second floor balcony... you did that to yourself running from the police into busy traffic. or more commonly in facial injuries - you were like that when we got to the scene of the bar fight you were in.

others just see a bloody black dude and want something to march about.

Im willing to give the Martese's of this world the benefit of the doubt, really i am, because sure, its possible that the ONE skinhead, hillbilly, neo-nazi cop in Charlottesville out to put the hurt on a black dude responded to the call, or better yet just said screw it and walked into a random bar and started wailing on the first black dude he came upon... but lets get the whole story before we start going insane in the streets with rage, marching on police stations, applying broad brush strokes to police officers, occupying campuses etc.

our society is so reactionary to these sorts of things. 9 times out of 10 we dont even know what the circumstances behind the incident are until several weeks or months later yet we feel compelled to do something NOW.

the time to march, hashtag, pep rally, self immolate etc is when it is proven that the actions taken by police were in fact unjustified - not the day after the incident takes place.

for all we know this guy was either

a) binge raping puppies in front of an orphanage

or

b) is the victim of senseless police violence

can we not wait until one of those possibilities is eliminated before we raise the roof of up in this place?

[Oberon]

Stepping outside of the whole racial issue for a moment, there does certainly seem to be a tread of police reaching for their firearms and using them in a situation that does not call for it. We quite possibly have a similar situation in the UK but with tasers, and our old justice secretary who pushed for their introduction is now calling for a review into their use.
Now obviously there are going to be accidental shootings, but the attitude of the police seems to be regarding the public as less of an entity to be protected and more an entity to be combatted.
This is not a good way to go.

Now, coming back to the story at hand...well, first off, these are university students, I don't think anyone would be surprised that they are protesting. That's what they do. That's usually the point in peoples lives when they become politicised, and they will rebel against anything, especially if it seems to be authoritarian, and you don't get a bigger representation of authority than the police...except perhaps the IRS.
Honestly, uni students protesting against the police is no surprise at all.

I couldn't honestly comment on the whole white/black privelege situation in the US since the only stories that come out of the US are so hideously skewed one way or the other that it's impossible to be certain about anything regarding race. Clearly there are those who will always be convinced that there is a problem, who have built their careers on there being a problem, and there are those who are vehemently opposed to there being a problem even if there is one that they are willing to label their opposition in all forms of fanciful names.
However, there is a problem somewhere in the system, although it's hard to tell whether it's a social, economic or political one, but clearly there is a growing trend of people who feel that there is a disconnect between them and the country they live in. Whether this is a problem of their own making, or whether this is a situation they have found themselves in, well that depends on who you ask. And it's not just an American thing, it's a western world thing, and I think that with the coming of the internet people are joining together in a way they could not before to protest about it. Just as people are coming together in conspiracy theories about 9/11, and about how the US government is going to take everyones guns away, so people are coming together to complain about injustices in the system of the nation they live in, or what they perceive to be so.

In short, this is a thing and it will continue until people work together to stop making it a thing.

[GoldenRivet]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Stepping outside of the whole racial issue for a moment, there does certainly seem to be a tread of police reaching for their firearms and using them in a situation that does not call for it.

First, i'd like to point out that the young man was not shot, though i understand you are probably not implying that

Second, is there really a trend indicating the rise of police shootings?

When i wanted to buy a Jeep Wrangler, i never used to see them on the road. The day after i bought one, i was waving left and right at dozens of other Jeep Wrangler drivers on every outing i went on.

I would venture to guess that while the percentage of police shootings has probably remained roughly the same the last say - 10 years - the media has learned that front paging the crap out of police shootings they can turn it into the next national moment. Greater exposure creates the idea that such things are happening with greater frequency.

Imagine if the US Media reported every single small plane crash and made a media day of each. If that were the case they would have a new crash of any given severity to report every few days. Suddenly, the perception is that small planes are falling from the sky left and right... what is not conveyed in such a style of reporting is the hundreds of thousands of flight hours which took place during that crash prone 8 or 9 hours.

Originally Posted by Oberon

the attitude of the police seems to be regarding the public as less of an entity to be protected and more an entity to be combatted.

and i cant imagine why

Originally Posted by Oberon

Clearly there are those who will always be convinced that there is a problem, who have built their careers on there being a problem, and there are those who are vehemently opposed to there being a problem even if there is one that they are willing to label their opposition in all forms of fanciful names.

How would you like a middle of the road perspective?

you are dealing with 5 segments of race in America, not 2. everybody thinks there are 2 sides to the story... well there are 5 where blacks and whites are concerned in America

1. whites
2. under achieving whites
3. blacks
4. under achieving blacks
5. other

1. Whites raise their kids to respect folks, even if they are different, they punish their kids for spitting our racial slurs, they work hard, live in a nice house, drive a nice car, successfully pursue higher education, they work along side of blacks every day. and nobody really has a problem.

2. under achieving whites sit around and collect welfare checks, what little money they do bring home from whatever job they work this month they blow on bud lite, tattoos, pickup truck accessories and lord knows what else. They consider blacks lazy and the root of the problem.

3. Blacks raise their kids to respect folks, even if they are different, they punish their kids for spitting out racial slurs, they work hard, live in a nice house, drive a nice car, successfully pursue higher education, they work hard along side of whites every day. and nobody really has a problem.

4. under achieving blacks sit around and collect welfare checks, what little money they do bring home from whatever job they work this month they blow on colt 45 malt liquor, tattoos, spinning rims and lord knows what else. they consider whites to be in control of the world and the root of the problem.

5. other... the Jesse Jackson's and the - i dunno - Bill O'riellys. the profiteer off the entire situation and nothing gets accomplished and it seems like the worse things are, the more attention these guys get and the worse everything seems to get.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

First, i'd like to point out that the young man was not shot, though i understand you are probably not implying that

Second, is there really a trend indicating the rise of police shootings?

When i wanted to buy a Jeep Wrangler, i never used to see them on the road. The day after i bought one, i was waving left and right at dozens of other Jeep Wrangler drivers on every outing i went on.

I would venture to guess that while the percentage of police shootings has probably remained roughly the same the last say - 10 years - the media has learned that front paging the crap out of police shootings they can turn it into the next national moment. Greater exposure creates the idea that such things are happening with greater frequency.

Imagine if the US Media reported every single small plane crash and made a media day of each. If that were the case they would have a new crash of any given severity to report every few days. Suddenly, the perception is that small planes are falling from the sky left and right... what is not conveyed in such a style of reporting is the hundreds of thousands of flight hours which took place during that crash prone 8 or 9 hours.

Valid point, valid point. You've also got the internet which harvests every single news story, no matter where it goes in the national and international media, the internet will find it and the relevent parties who decide that it is for their interest will publish it within their circle and that will increase its exposure.

and i cant imagine why

The problem is, is that you can't have a force which has the stated objective 'Protect and Serve' consider the people that it's meant to protect as the enemy. You can understand why such a mindset might have crept in, but it has to be quashed, otherwise if you get into a situation where the police are no longer trusted to act fair and neutral then you might as well just disband them and go for mob rule because people will just take the law into their own hands anyway. Obviously some people will do this anyway in certain areas, but it's when it creeps into other sections of society that it becomes dangerous.
I'm not saying that all the police are bad, it's the same in the UK, it's the bad eggs that get all the attention, but it's like weeds in a garden, if you don't dig them out, if you don't pull them up by the roots then it just chokes the rest of the plant life around it and it whithers and dies.

How would you like a middle of the road perspective?

you are dealing with 5 segments of race in America, not 2. everybody thinks there are 2 sides to the story... well there are 5 where blacks and whites are concerned in America

1. whites
2. under achieving whites
3. blacks
4. under achieving blacks
5. other

1. Whites raise their kids to respect folks, even if they are different, they punish their kids for spitting our racial slurs, they work hard, live in a nice house, drive a nice car, successfully pursue higher education, they work along side of blacks every day. and nobody really has a problem.

2. under achieving whites sit around and collect welfare checks, what little money they do bring home from whatever job they work this month they blow on bud lite, tattoos, pickup truck accessories and lord knows what else. They consider blacks lazy and the root of the problem.

3. Blacks raise their kids to respect folks, even if they are different, they punish their kids for spitting out racial slurs, they work hard, live in a nice house, drive a nice car, successfully pursue higher education, they work hard along side of whites every day. and nobody really has a problem.

4. under achieving blacks sit around and collect welfare checks, what little money they do bring home from whatever job they work this month they blow on colt 45 malt liquor, tattoos, spinning rims and lord knows what else. they consider whites to be in control of the world and the root of the problem.

5. other... the Jesse Jackson's and the - i dunno - Bill O'riellys. the profiteer off the entire situation and nothing gets accomplished and it seems like the worse things are, the more attention these guys get and the worse everything seems to get.

That's a pretty fair assessment. Obviously you can't generalise too much, there's plenty of folks out there, black and white, who are in the under achieving section but are working hard to try and get out. Also there are plenty of white folks who have lots of money who consider blacks to be lazy and the source of the problem. Probably more so than wealthy blacks who consider whites to be the problem. So it splinters up a bit more than a five point lay-out, but I do see where you're coming from.
The question perhaps to ask is, is the situation getting worse? And depending on the answer to that, how do we stop it from either being or seeming to be that way?

[GoldenRivet]

Originally Posted by Oberon

That's a pretty fair assessment. Obviously you can't generalise too much, there's plenty of folks out there, black and white, who are in the under achieving section but are working hard to try and get out. Also there are plenty of white folks who have lots of money who consider blacks to be lazy and the source of the problem. Probably more so than wealthy blacks who consider whites to be the problem. So it splinters up a bit more than a five point lay-out, but I do see where you're coming from.
The question perhaps to ask is, is the situation getting worse? And depending on the answer to that, how do we stop it from either being or seeming to be that way?

Its a pretty fair assessment - for a generalization. Its a 30 pace assessment. It works well when viewed from 30 paces, but its flaws are exposed as you walk nearer to it.

while true that it is oversimplified for the sake of forum posting - its about dead on accurate as a generalization can get.

It is unfortunate though where black America is. you see... I, like many other conservative types i pal around with (and we have these discussions frequently) want blacks to succeed, we want them to be highly educated, we want to see them hold high paying positions and be masterful members of society commanding high salaries and joining us for cocktails at our Christmas parties.

but black culture in America is such that if you do these things... your just guilty of trying to be white. There is an expectation that you wear a hoddie, there is an expectation that you listen to the rhythmic bass of inner city rap music thumping away. Your expected to talk street a certain way. Its as if there is an image to maintain with being black, and if you step outside of the box the rest of your peers expect you to fit into you are ostracized. this is not prevalent in white culture. We've got snobby paris hilton types, red necks, we have middle class types, we've got the metrosexual types... and for the most part, one white peer doesnt really give that much of a crap which of those groups you fit into and there certainly isnt the notion that you are "betraying your race" if you pick a box to get into it.

Being that my parents were in the medical field i knew a hand full of black surgeons/doctors/practitioners etc. in knowing them i also knew their children, some my age, some younger, some older.

universally. they were treated differently. They went to school with their khaki pants and their button up shirts, the spoke to their teachers with yes Ma'am and No ma'am, they were intelligent, and articulate when they spoke to others. you didnt get "Yo dawg, say... say... yo where da lye barry at?" from them... no you got "Excuse me, can you please direct me to the Library?"... other blacks, probably 90% of them hated those aspects of these kids. They were literally ostracized by their own race. they knew it... we knew it... their parents knew it.

while other black kids were wearing panty hose on their heads and had one pant leg rolled up and the other all the way down, and the waste of the pants worn around the hips or in some cases the knees with underwear visible... these kids wanted nothing to do with that, the came to school, got good marks, went home, studied, took their cello lessons and went on about life.

today, a couple of them are Doctors, one i think is a lawyer, one died of cancer at a very young age of maybe 20 years old (i remember her being the most beautiful black woman i had ever seen in my life and she still holds this title)

the ones that ostracized them... well... im not 100% certain what most of them do. some of them sweep gravel off the highway, others pick up my garbage. and that to me is very sad, that these kids, probably out of fear that they too would be ostracized for "acting white" now have thrown away any chance they had at achieving great things... just for the sake of maintaining an image and fitting into a box they felt compelled to fit into.

that, in my opinion is what is wrong with black America. that, in my opinion is what i think needs to be fixed first before we do anything else.

i would certainly like to have a young black teens take on that. I've not had the opportunity to discuss it with one.

but that brings up the other issue.

if you're white and you step out of line where a black person is concerned... your branded with the scarlet letter "R" for racist. you'll lose friends, you'll likely lose your job. What one black person does to another is simply passed off as "crap happens" but if a white person steps on a toe gives the wrong look - well here comes the R word and you're hosed

[Tchocky]

It is unfortunate though where black America is. you see... I, like many other conservative types i pal around with (and we have these discussions frequently) want blacks to succeed, we want them to be highly educated, we want to see them hold high paying positions and be masterful members of society commanding high salaries and joining us for cocktails at our Christmas parties.

Honest question - do you actually realise how insulting and patronising this attitude is?

but black culture in America is such that if you do these things... your just guilty of trying to be white. There is an expectation that you wear a hoddie, there is an expectation that you listen to the rhythmic bass of inner city rap music thumping away. Your expected to talk street a certain way. Its as if there is an image to maintain with being black, and if you step outside of the box the rest of your peers expect you to fit into you are ostracized. this is not prevalent in white culture.

You being a white guy would of course have at least a working knowledge of what "white culture" (jesus, whatever that is) does and does not contain.

Of course you have the same level and depth of knowledge of what "black culture" does or does not contain.


Strewth.

[Wolferz]

If the police single out the African-American (i abhor that term by the way)

As do I. I am an American. If I hyphenated my heritage it would be too long. to fit in the space provided. I'm not saying that anyone should throw away their roots but, hyphenating it to constantly shove it in the faces of others is kind of racist. Cease and desist by returning to the country of origin and save those precious hyphens for all those snotty bitches who love themselves more than they do their husbands. As for Martese... Stay out of bars, dude and stop making a drunken nuisance of yourself. Booze turns people into loudmouthed idiots and cops don't take kindly to sass talk and resisting arrest. It's called setting yourself up to get whamsauced.