Posts by Pacopoolio

551

Officer Wilson not indicted in killing of Michael Brown

by Simon in

after a thorough investigation and weighing of the evidence the grand jury has decided not to indict the officer.. the reaction so far seems as predicted - people refuse to accept that the result represents justice despite claims that is what they wanted.. there is now violence and vandalism, including gunshots.

let's hope the police contain the troublemakers.. .

Pacopoolio

have been given a narrative about the past and present which contains more anger and hatred than is useful or healthy.

"Have been given a narrative about the past?" What adult black person in this country hasn't experienced multiple examples of direct racism from someone of the majority race? You don't think that when you experience 10 people who share the skin color of people who have power over you in most instances of life, you don't get a little paranoid? You think women are worried about many of the same things as black people because of "the narrative they've been given" as well?

I mean, do you even consider that when a minority or a woman or a gay tells you that they have a different experience entirely from you based on how other people have viewed them, that this might be the case, and not just "people scaring them with the past?" Or is that just for black people?

Do you understand or believe in the concept of relative privilege, and how it means that you don't even consider what CONSTANTLY goes through someone without's mind (and it not being because of 'things in the past' either)?

551

Officer Wilson not indicted in killing of Michael Brown

by Simon in

after a thorough investigation and weighing of the evidence the grand jury has decided not to indict the officer.. the reaction so far seems as predicted - people refuse to accept that the result represents justice despite claims that is what they wanted.. there is now violence and vandalism, including gunshots.

let's hope the police contain the troublemakers.. .

Pacopoolio

Marvin - this is the statement I referred to, where you said I used a strawman (notice that I -do- actually quote things I'm referring to, directly). I asked you what you meant by dressing like a thug, and assumed you equated a hoodie with at, and asked you to expand, because, as is, that's a faulty premise (because there's a different equivalency between race and perception, so "dressing like a thug" would differ between race). That does not fall under the definition of strawman, but whatever. :

A person walking around at night in a grocery store with a hoodie drawn over his or her face is going to get followed by security regardless of race. It won't matter whether the person is black or white, or lives in the projects or Beverly Hills.

A person who walks around dressed like a gang member is going to be watched as a potential gang member. It won't matter whether the person is black or white, or lives in the projects or Beverly Hills.

You then pointed out that it was "separated by paragraphs"; but as this direct quote shows, the structure of the paragraphs imply equivlalence because of the direct parallel, by the structure of the writing and sentence/paragraph/word relationships. When a sentence follows another like that, in that structure, that's a descriptive statement.

If you meant something else, that's fine, but there was no strawman - just someone responding to the words that you wrote in the way that you structured them.

551

Officer Wilson not indicted in killing of Michael Brown

by Simon in

after a thorough investigation and weighing of the evidence the grand jury has decided not to indict the officer.. the reaction so far seems as predicted - people refuse to accept that the result represents justice despite claims that is what they wanted.. there is now violence and vandalism, including gunshots.

let's hope the police contain the troublemakers.. .

Pacopoolio

Simon,

I was addressing EndofMysteries there; why are you "saving" him from trying to dig his way out of his statements?

And the majority race does not have a pervasive/constant reference to their skin color, and thus has the luxury of not "caring" that's the advantage of privilege of being the "norm." That's an advantage of privilege, just as I have the advantage of male privilege in instances where I don't even have to CONSIDER my gender, or orientation privilege, where I don't normally even have to consider what sexual orientation I am.

551

Officer Wilson not indicted in killing of Michael Brown

by Simon in

after a thorough investigation and weighing of the evidence the grand jury has decided not to indict the officer.. the reaction so far seems as predicted - people refuse to accept that the result represents justice despite claims that is what they wanted.. there is now violence and vandalism, including gunshots.

let's hope the police contain the troublemakers.. .

Pacopoolio

Simon, no one in this entire thread said the police caused the crime. Who, exactly, are you responding to in here that asserted that?

What about black people being black makes them commit crime? Are the attitudes shared among all demographics of black people, or the same demographic spread of other races when it comes to crime? If it's the latter, how does being black have anything; if it's the former, what's your source for this?

I'm referring to specific isolated instances that would create a cause/effect situation with any oppressed minority in any country when I bring up historical factors in endemic poverty and lack of education (which leads to crime). Are you?

551

Officer Wilson not indicted in killing of Michael Brown

by Simon in

after a thorough investigation and weighing of the evidence the grand jury has decided not to indict the officer.. the reaction so far seems as predicted - people refuse to accept that the result represents justice despite claims that is what they wanted.. there is now violence and vandalism, including gunshots.

let's hope the police contain the troublemakers.. .

Pacopoolio

1st incident, some people ran past me when I was just standing there, a cop ran around, randomly picked me up by my neck and yelled at me for running from him. I guess that was understandable - I was black, and the people that were running were black, I guess.

Later, when I still lived in Detroit neighborhoods, I was riding to Grosse Pointe, one of the richer neghborhoods, that at the time was mostly white, and happened to border Detroit. I drove past some cops, and they followed me for ten minutes, until I parked at a friends house. Looking in my rearview, they were obviously running my plates. After I parked, they put the lights on, ran up to my car, told me to open the door with my hands up and then pulled me out onto the ground with guns drawn. After checking my license and looking around, they let me go. When I inquired what I did wrong, they said "you matched the description of a guy who stole a white Ford Explorer." I had a white Jeep Cherokee (more than what would be expected of a young black teen at the time in Detroit). Given that they obviously ran the plates, could see the make of the car, etc. it was impossible that was actually the case, and I got paranoid in driving my car for quite some time (you would too, if you had guns pointed at you).

551

Officer Wilson not indicted in killing of Michael Brown

by Simon in

after a thorough investigation and weighing of the evidence the grand jury has decided not to indict the officer.. the reaction so far seems as predicted - people refuse to accept that the result represents justice despite claims that is what they wanted.. there is now violence and vandalism, including gunshots.

let's hope the police contain the troublemakers.. .

Pacopoolio

End of Mysteries, do you believe 40% of the "white community" get to steal, rob, and do whatever they want, too, given the percentage of white males that have been arrested? Do you complain that the other 40/50% of law abiders doesn't speak up every time someone white does something wrong? Then, what in the world point are you trying to make, regarding black people?

551

Officer Wilson not indicted in killing of Michael Brown

by Simon in

after a thorough investigation and weighing of the evidence the grand jury has decided not to indict the officer.. the reaction so far seems as predicted - people refuse to accept that the result represents justice despite claims that is what they wanted.. there is now violence and vandalism, including gunshots.

let's hope the police contain the troublemakers.. .

Pacopoolio

Stop and search crimes are the majority of misdemeanors, and what are used in crime statistics. Violent crime stats are something else. Guess who gets searched more, on average?

I don't know what the black on black homicdes have to do with anything. And what is "community leadership?" There's no leaders for millions of people separated by that large of a geographical divide; just people the media like to stick in front of the T.V., who do not represent the thoughts or feelings of anyone besides themselves.

Blacks killing blacks has nothing to do with white cops shooting blacks more often for the same things. I got picked up by my neck by a cop for no reason as a teen, and pulled over and thrown out of my car as well for being a "suspected theif." That made me like a thousand percent more distrustful of police by default. That has nothing to do with me being scared of 5 black guys walking down the street in the middle of the night. That just means I'm MORE scared than someone who has never had a confrontation with the police at all. You keep creating either/or equivalncies instead of seeing things as a pile of issues/problems that gets added on.

I live in downtown Detroit right now, and lived in Southfield as well. Why are you asking "why don't I live in black communities?" I just don't live in direct POOR areas with low police presence to avoid crime - that's the difference.

Crime doesn't relate 1-1 with other crimes. Domestic violence curves don't necessarily follow speeding violation curves which don't necessarily relate with other things. Most murders disproportionately happen in the poorest areas of inner cities. The poorest areas of inner cities also have less police, much worse education, etc. etc. etc. And statistically more black people. So is the problem the fact that they're black or the correlation values with the living conditions of those areas?

Some of the links I posted directly link to the representational stats (for instance, noting how many crimes were shown on television, the races, and how the offenders of those races were portrayed in comparison).

164

Was justice served fairly in the Micheal Brown tragedy, whats your opinion ?

by Finkelstein in

the michael brown tragedy has garnered a lot of attention in the media recently highlighted.

by the recent county court decision to not indict the lone officer who did the shooting which caused the death of micheal brown.. .. now after more information of the event has been released openly to the public, we can evaluate upon are self.

in are own opinion toward was the law handed out in this particular event proportionately fair or to a professional standard ?.

Pacopoolio

Even in legal terms, justice depends on law interpretation, which is subjective. That's why courts are set up the way they are, and why the "higher" ones deal strictly in interpretation.

164

Was justice served fairly in the Micheal Brown tragedy, whats your opinion ?

by Finkelstein in

the michael brown tragedy has garnered a lot of attention in the media recently highlighted.

by the recent county court decision to not indict the lone officer who did the shooting which caused the death of micheal brown.. .. now after more information of the event has been released openly to the public, we can evaluate upon are self.

in are own opinion toward was the law handed out in this particular event proportionately fair or to a professional standard ?.

Pacopoolio

There is not enough information to know whether "justice" was served fairly or not. And the idea of what justice is, depends on the person asked.

Lawyer friends of mine stated that the case was not handled well at all, probably because of the media exposure. I don't know enough about the law to comment on that.

All cops should have GoPros attached to them at all time or something.

551

Officer Wilson not indicted in killing of Michael Brown

by Simon in

after a thorough investigation and weighing of the evidence the grand jury has decided not to indict the officer.. the reaction so far seems as predicted - people refuse to accept that the result represents justice despite claims that is what they wanted.. there is now violence and vandalism, including gunshots.

let's hope the police contain the troublemakers.. .

Pacopoolio

Simon,

The data is skewed by default as it doesn't show who commits more crime, just who is a) arrested, or b) convicted for it. You can't use those stats to say "commits more crime"; it's bad statistical reading (not by you Simon; I'm referring to the sources who report it as such, of which you're probably repeating it from, as I've read that before as well).

The default comes in because black people are both incarcirated and arrested more, for the same crimes, as other people. Since they get higher arrests and convictions, you can't use that as the basis to say they commit more crime.

Media representation is skewed often based on the roles given. When I get calls for film, for instance, they only want a set number of black people, etc. or don't want Asians or Hispanics for certain roles, etc. Throughout film/television history, minorities were delegated to spot roles, while the majority gets broad representation (Women also have this issue as compared to men in other aspects).

Clear Channel, producers, etc. directly control music tastes of the masses with popular music. They directly choose what they want to push. Tupac, etc. got a following talking about real life struggles and dreams of the black children of the parents who grew up in more oppressed times, and were now living in ghettos with little chance to escape. Along with things like police harassment, etc. Producers saw this was successful in the underground, pushed this as the majority, and then it gradually morphed into what it is today, taking the "dreams" (money, women, items) and making it the entire message, while emphasizing the shirtless, strong, stereotypical "thug" look. Etc. etc. etc.

There are psychological aspects of oppression that are often ignored. Just as if someone is robbed by a black person dressed in some way, they may be more fearful of that look by default, so will a black kid be distrustful of cops if he's harassed and assaulted by them for no reason, or sees others who are. If someone believes a police officer will shoot them, even when unarmed, a flight or fight instinct will automatically kick in, which is a problem.

While it's fiction, I recommend The Wire - especially season 4, that basically follows 4 kids raised in the inner city, whose lives have wildly different outcomes, just by chance, basically (who they are exposed to, and when - or when things work against them in life and exactly the worst times). David Simon (the creator) was a reporter in Baltimore and based much of it on actual events.

I agree that poverty, education, and other things are all huge factors - but the whole thing is a combination of interlocking issues.