The Street > The Lounge
Louisiana
Kinchy:
So the Tamir Rice video has been released, and clearly shows that the police made no effort to disarm the boy, instead just shooting him down immediately.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2014/nov/26/cleveland-video-tamir-rice-shooting-police
Not only that, but they lied about it saying they had given him three warnings, and that he was part of a large group of young people. Obviously there are questions as to why a 12 year old boy has a replica gun, but when America glorifies gun ownership so much I am not even a little surprised.
andreas:
You're not supposed to shoot at a suspect in the legs because the department can get sued for a fuckton.
ginger:
Backward Arse Fucking Hickville. Rename your country to that.
cmc4130:
--- Quote from: condrbkr on November 27, 2014, 12:44:39 AM --- . . .
That white boy is more or less fighting a war in a foreign land and it's gotta be scary as shit.
. . . .
--- End quote ---
This is telling. African-Americans are not foreign. I know exactly what you mean though. A lot of white people do have this mentality. They literally say things like "such and such neighborhood is like a third world country."
You see why Black people would be so upset by this? They are as American as American gets and they're still being treated by the cops as if the cops are European colonialists in Africa, along the lines of a famous (but false) quote "The natives are restless." http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=557415
I would say that Officer Wilson's assertion that he felt "fear" and was claiming to being overpowered was the sub-conscious cue for a lot of people. How could a 6'4" tall police officer be that fearful of another unarmed 6'4" man? Only in the cultural context of white people's fear of black anger.
Which again, your statement is so telling: "I'm sure as a white boy in blue in a neighborhood like Ferguson is tough. There is so much pent up hatred by a few members of these communities for such people."
White people feel their fear is justified, and jurors sympathize with the white police officer over that. They are not empathizing with black people's fear of the police in the same way.
But, I'm not stupid. I get it. If I worked in that liquor store in that neighborhood, there would be lots of times I'd be scared too.
And that's the same in every country that has "bad neighborhoods." Canada and Europe included. It's just that the thugs and police in those countries have a lot fewer guns.
Community policing is the theory that police who patrol certain areas should be culturally from or connected to those areas. This wasn't the case in Ferguson--where all the officers are white and from a different part of St. Louis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_policing What if the police officer was from that neighborhood and maybe even knew Michael Brown? http://www.blackpolice.org/ Likely that the whole thing could have played out differently.
cmc4130:
--- Quote from: Kinchy on November 25, 2014, 09:38:54 AM ---My view from across the pond is that Americas attitude towards authority, and separately towards black people, is massively fucked up
Black people are treated as inherently different, as if somehow it is genetic that they have such a different culture. Part of me wonders if this is just a denial of accepting any responsibility for the situation of some ghettos and that America is responsible for such a large percentage of the black community being so poor.
Secondly, positioning police and other 'authority' figures on some kind of pedestal, immune to being held responsible for their actions, and a culture which covers up their mistakes which are no doubt prejudice influenced.
What worries me more is how much the UK is moving towards a US mentality in many other ways, which I fear will end up in similar situations
--- End quote ---
Like:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Mark_Duggan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_England_riots
?
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version