/raises hand
Mainly “Driving whilst possessing a brown skin whilst accompanied by a black man.”
People like me can’t possibly understand, but we can certainly try our best. That’s…staggering.
Nesrie
5119
Thankfully, sort of, that is not how most our systems oppress women of color. It’s how they oppress men of color, brown and black men specifically.
Boy. Show me your ID. What are you doing here? Someone called and said you don’t belong here.
We have story, after story, from celebrities, to men in the military to just average people sitting outside a store or who literally bought something at Nordstrom rack. It is a system designed to emasculate, oppress and ultimately control a group of people. And it has been going on for generations, 100s, plural, of years.
So if that is not understood, if that isn’t ingrained deep in your heart, step back and stop talking about the police and start… listening. We did not reach this point in time because most people understand. We’re here because most don’t.
“Non-cooperation with law enforcement has never given officers carte blanche to use deadly force against a suspect; luckily for many of us, neither has being ‘armed’ with a small knife,” the court wrote. “Jones was not an armed felon on the run, nor a fleeing suspect luring officers into a high-speed chase. Jones was walking in the road next to the sidewalk, away from the dark shadows and blind corners of buildings at night. He was without housing and had a knife on his person. As a pedestrian, he should have been on the sidewalk, but Officer Lehman never told him that.”
I’m glad that “Defund the Police” is setting the bar. Why? Because it’s some big, dramatic goal posts way down field. Most people don’t understand the nuance, and it’s crazy scary. So, a (D) politician who proposes something like a 50-yard play instead of the usual creeping the ball down the field by a yard or two, is seen as being reasonable. This is an historic moment, and we can’t abide the safe plays anymore.
Sorry for all the football metaphors, esp. considering I know almost nothing about the sport.
In 1992 during Hurricane Iniki my brothers (white) had a run in with Honolulu PD. I guess they were walking somewhere the cops deemed unsafe and they told them to leave. The cops got very aggressive, screaming in my brothers’ faces and calling them ‘stupid fucking haoles’. (The racial dynamics in Hawaii are a bit weird & complex.) The younger of the two brothers later wrote to me that “I now radiate hatred toward all cops” so I guess it was a pretty unpleasant experience.
I haven’t had many issues with cops myself although one time LAPD came to my apartment building (early 2000s) to check out some gunshots that had been fired in the vicinity. I was outside the building talking to one of the cops and made some kind of a move with my hand… getting something out of my pocket or something, which was obviously not smart with a nervous cop around. He told me not to move and I vaguely recall him making some kind of comment about how I could get shot, but I don’t remember exactly what it was and I might have revised the memory over the years.
On the other hand, I ran a stop sign recently (I don’t know why, I was totally oblivious for some reason) and a cop pulled me over, then let me off with a warning. So, yay white privilege?
British Trump has clearly declared he’s siding with statues of racists and is now stoking tensions and driving division
Tman
5143
Seattle CHAZ artists have been busy.
Thrag
5144
The official title is “The UK’s Trump Muppet”
Timex
5145
But what you need to keep in mind is that you’re entering into what is probably going to be the most important election of your lifetime, and if you scare off independents by making them think you’re going to get rid of all the cops… that might go badly for you.
What detail do you believe I was mistaken about? Specifically?
This is the mistake you’re making, right here.
After only a minute or so of hassle, you don’t have the right to terminate that engagement with the officer. You aren’t allowed to just walk away, if he tells you to stay there.
You can imagine, in your head, that he totally cleared himself… but that’s not your call to make. That’s the cop’s call to make, under the law. And while we can imagine a situation where the cop’s process is not reasonable (like if he takes an hour to make the assessment), that’s not what happened here. It’s totally reasonable for the cop to have wanted to talk to him more than one minute to assess his state of mind.
At that point, if you disobey the officers and try to leave, they are within their rights to forcibly detain you. Their order to you for you to remain there is entirely reasonable, and directly in line with what the law tells them to do.
Dejin
5149
The term “Black Lives Matter“ came into use in 2013. Can you remind me again who won the 2014 Congressional Elections and 2016 Presidential Elections?
Is the term “Defund the Police” worth losing the 2020 Presidential and Congressional elections so we can finally get people to understand and back it in 2027? As opposed to maybe coming up with a better phrase and not losing the next round of elections?
Menzo
5150
Um…are you suggesting that Black Lives Matter caused Dems to lose the 2014 and 2016 elections?
Honestly…black people. Am I right?
Dejin
5152
I’m suggesting everything adds to the environment. We know that Trump energized the racist base and won the election.
Coming up with an alternative phrase to “Defund the Police” costs nothing. Keeping the phrase “Defund the Police” makes it easier for Trumpers to try to delegitimization the movement or energize his base. There is no benefit to keeping the phrase and lots of potential costs. Using the phrase is stupid, and clinging to it is stupid.
In other threads we’ve talked about why the Lincoln Project is so effective. One thing that the Republicans do much better is coming up with names. Pro-Life instead of Anti-Abortion or the Morality Police. Death Tax instead of Ensuring America does not have an Aristocracy Tax.
Democrats on the other hand are really bad at this. It’s quite possible if the phrase had been “Black Lives Matter Too” support for it wouldn’t have taken this long to take off. It conveys the exact same meaning and puts the racists on the back foot because it’s virtually impossible to argue against without clearly indicating that you are a racist asshole.
“Defund the Police” is a particularly bad example where a bunch of very-liberal people think it sounds great and don’t seem to care that it actually polls very badly. You don’t want to give Republican Trumpers weapons to use against you.
Nesrie
5153
I think it’s wholly ignorant to suggest if the Democrats had won we would not have more black lives destroyed by the police. It’s been going on for centuries, and you think you can step in and claim that somehow if the Democrats won that what, the last few hundred of them wouldn’t count?
The only way we get to move forward with better tomorrow is if white people stop trying to find random shit to blame instead of working on themselves and making it happen. The only reason oppression continues as it does today is the oppressor keep finding new ways to stay in power, and that’s not going to change based on how cute the slogan is. To believe that you’d have to ignore the entirety of actual history. Can you even jot down the messages used from efforts used over 400 years trying to make people actually care about other human beings that don’t look just like them?
I’m sure “Black Lives Matter Too” would have gained approval among whites faster.
I’m also sure that “Please spare a thought for black lives, thank you” would have gained approval with whites faster still.
But it had to be “Black Lives Matter.”
Because if you weren’t ready to say that, without emendation or qualification, you were probably mentally adding the rider “…but, let’s be realistic, not as much as white lives - hey, I’m just telling it like it is here!” And that needed to be confronted and called out in order for minds to change.
The easy path is not always the right one.
Woke Taylor Swift thread. (in which she displays more historical knowledge than the entire DJT family could accumulate in 3 lifetimes)
