by out4good3 229 Replies latest social current
Doc-
You have to distinguish between those who followed Martin Luther King's example on Non-Violence and the Burn Baby Burn advocates. Anarchists like to wade into these situations and ingite a fire storm. Remember the Chicago Democratic Convention in 1968 that erupted into violence. That was a lot of infiltrators, both Anarchists and our Government's own people inciting a riot.
DESIGNS, I agree.
The difference is the "anarchists" forced the changes and the "non-violent" reformers got the credit because no one wants to admit that "violence" forced the change. Thus MLK is held up as the role model instead of ....................... [insert name? Malcolm X?].
Who shows up on the scene? Al Sharpton. Al Sharpton is a scumbag. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/05/tawana-brawley-hoax_n_3709058.html). But where are the good role models in the minority community of our country? Where are their comments on the injustice? All silent. Colin Powell? Condi Rice? Obama is still sipping julips at Martha's Vineyard. Fact is, they don't want to upset their "white" status. They're not gonna rally 'round no "nigga" kid, and they ain't gonna rock no boats.
Doc
i agree anony mous
these days the police think they are above the law, most of them have no respect for people in general, they have a mentality before they even enter the police academy
of being bullies or they are people who like to control others .
I for one cannot get over whats gong on in this county and the world in general ,people get more stupid as each generation is born.
when police chases that are entirely unnecesary result in deaths of innocent bystanders, and officers grab a man for selling stupid cigaretts, instead of simply writing him up a ticket, when there is much more pressing issues to be dealt with, i know i live in a world that wont last much longer.
get ready for the 6th extinction.
i live in a world that wont last much longer.
get ready for the 6th extinction.
OR>.................................maybe...ARMAGEDDON!
Yeah that's the ticket! Get ready for Armageddon!
You gotta know, the world is getting worse and worse by the minute!
Might be time to get my ass back to the Kingdom Hall!
Doc
There is a lesson to be learned here if you think that all police officers are white racists just waiting for an opportunity to confront you and execute you.
The next time you just finished robbing a store and assaulting the store worker, and minutes later you feel you need to walk down the middle of a marked divided road instead of walking on the sidewalk. When a police officer stops and tells you to get out of the middle of the road.....YOU GET OUT OF THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD.
You get out of the middle of the road and the police officer will probably go about their way. If you really think & feel that all police are white racist murderers, then by following their instructions to get out of the middle of the road you decrease the chances of a confrontation with the police officer, and you probably increase your chances of getting away with the robbery & assault you commited minutes earlier.
DOC- Remember when then California Governor Ronald Reagan signed the Mulford Act barring (targeting) the Black Panthers from exercising the now popular Open Carry interpretation of the 2nd Amendment.
There are lots of claims and counter claims being made here, even the irrelevent or debunked ones will no doubt be repeated again and again, louder and louder in an attempt to force them to be accepted as fact. Let's hope we can have some civilised discussion.
Personally, I think the African American community has been woefully let down by their "leaders" who appear like ambulance chasers saying the same old rhetoric but really perpetuating the situations that they make a good living from. They get on the news, promote their version of reality and tell the family of the deceased youth that they have been unfairly victimised and that the system is against them.
Lots of things were accomplished by the Civil Rights movement in the 60's most notably changing the laws to make discrimination illegal but these accomplishments have been squandered to a large degree. Community leaders should have been encouraging their youths to join the police and to report discrimination and harrassment - to amass a body of complaints that could not be ignored and take advantage of the laws to change the situations.
Instead, the rhetoric reenforces the notion that they should disengage from law-enforcement which results in mostly white people viewing law-enforcement as a worthy career. Policing a community should be done by people from the community - are african americans under-represented by the police in certain areas because of discrimination or because they simply don't apply to join? Complaining that the police are too white is misleading if that is the case. Complaints of discrimination would be more effective and could be used to effect change and make claims of discrimination carry more weight.
Of course, robbing a store should not carry a death penalty and I believe the use of language such as "executed in the street" is designed to mislead people into believing that this is the situation. The real issue is whether, after committing this violent crime, he then attacked a policeman in the same manner who felt the need to defend himself. Should the police have released the video of the robbery? Apparently yes - they were forced to because of freedom of information requests and the demands for transparency, not because of any attempt to ruin his character and besides, it is the act of robbing the store that does this, not the reporting of it.
The issue is really whether the police officer was attacked or not and if so, whether he overreacted and used excessive force in his self defence. There needs to be an investigation to gather the facts and if there is then sufficient evidence there should be an arrest and a prosecution. Demanding an immediate arrest is not and cannot be how the law operates and the community would be better served by leaders who educated people of this fact rather than riling up a crowd with emotive language claiming a miscarriage of justice before the justice system has operated. It does nothing to help see justice done either way because it ends up unfairly ruining the officers life even if they have done nothing wrong.
As an outsider it seems troubling that there are claims of so much harassment and discrimination but the poster-cases that get so much attention always seem to center on youth involved in committing crime and others, seemingly more worthy cases, get passed over by the leaders. Is it simply whether there is some involvement by a non-black person in the situation?
A lot has been made of the fact that the majority of black people are interested in this news story and white people mostly aren't as much. Crimes are committed to varying degrees by different ethnicities but how many see the need to protest when someone of the same color is killed? If some white kid robs a store, attacks a cop and get's shot in the process there are no protests - sure, people have the same color skin ... is that all that matters? Could focus on skin color alone be promoted too much within a community at the expense of other areas including criminality, behavior and personal responsibility?
Of course, I am not saying that racism does not happen but I don't think the current leadership is doing anything to truly solve the situation or improve things for their community. The message frequently being promoted that all problems are caused by racism and all white people are racist and benefit from white privilege does nothing to help outsiders want to engage in the issues. Without open and honest debate of the problems and the causes, not just the symptoms, I don't think America will be able to sort out it's race issues and unfortunately, this is unlikely to happen given the state of political debate right now.
Having personal cameras will probably shorten the media-cycle somewhat and provide important additional evidence in cases like this. I don't see anything else improving things for the forseable future.
Here's what we KNOW as facts:
* Michael Brown was a thug, a bully, and a thief. The video of him in the store shortly before the shooting is proof enough of his mood and actions that day.
* Officer Darren Wilson has NO history of racism or excessive violence. He was visibly distraught immediately after the shooting, as seen in the videos.
Commentary:
The public has every right to demand that the shooting be thoroughly investigated, but has NO right to demand any particular outcome, much less a specific verdict. To indict the officer, much less actually try him, just to appease the crowds is just plain wrong. Justice should take its course just as if there were no public outcry. This is not a country of mob rule (yet). I say let the chips fall where they may, but don't preordain the outcome.
Personally, I find the officer's account of how an insolent young thug hit him and tried to get his gun and then charged at him much more believable than a cop simply deciding to execute an innocent pedestrian just for fun. The story of Brown kneeling in the street with his hands up yelling "Don't shoot" smells like pure bullcrap.
Shields are up. Flame away. Nobody ever accused me of being politically correct.
Absolutely agree with you on this one, Simon. About them releasing the video I think hell yes they should release it and let it come into trial. It happened only minutes before the police altercation. It shows the possible frame of mind of MB. It doesn't matter that the police officer had no idea what MB had just done. MB was robbing a store and using his body size to bully the store owner. I really believe MB was under the influence of something. If the tox come back positive I think it will vindicate the cop's actions/story. Of course it still won't shut some people up. Some people just have a victim mentality. There are witnesses corroborating the cop's story as well.
Also, the news finally reproted some positive yesterday. Some of the general public, shop keepers reported that the looters are few in comparison with the peaceful protesters. A lot of the community is coming out and helping clean up the streets and going out of their way to purchase from the shop keepers.
It still frankly boggles my mind that anyone thinks they should be able to attack an armed police officer and not risk being shot because of it and, if they are shot, would imagine it was for any other reason than the attack. Heck, I would be scared of being shot if a cop with a gun stopped to give me a traffic ticket, what kind of idiot would I need to be to be beligerant or even attack them?!
It's good to see the community controlling the damage done to local businesses. Although less serious by comparison with a death, it's still a serious issue that could affect a lot of people - there could be severe long-term consequences if people think twice about investing in the area or move businesses away (or go bust) because of the unrest and trouble.
Less encouraging is seeing little kids being fed the story that cops are cruising around looking to shoot them because I don't think the evidence is there to back up that claim. The fact that this case is in the news at all is precisely because it was a black kid and a white cop and a relatively rare event. Does teaching kids that they could be shot for being black make them more or less likely to try and attack a cop vs act respectfully and sensibly?
