Jump to content
Henroid

Black Lives Matter

Recommended Posts

I was going to revive the Ferguson thread but realized this issue is too big to contain to something like that.

 

Black Lives Matter. If you're literal-minded, you're going to hate the name. If you understand metaphors, similes, and other rules of language, then you probably get it. Black people get treated unfairly in the country and that shit has got to change. The primary focus of the movement is on law enforcement but it certainly doesn't stop there.

 

I'm a little emotional at the moment at the latest shit to happen today, which I will provide a link to here. It is a video, and it is fucked up, and just... goddamn it. Anyone denying there's a problem is literally a dodo head.

 

https://twitter.com/boldandworthy/status/658792793343705089

 

Edit - Okay, leaving for work but wanted to add something super important up here in the OP.

 

This is the site for Campaign Zero, which has explicitly stated goals and suggestions on curbing / ending police brutality and racism within law enforcement. It is excellent, it is worth a read, and fuck anyone who says "Black Lives Matter" has no direction or clear message because it is right here.

http://www.joincampaignzero.org/

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I usually show this comic to people who bring up the all lives matter thing. When I hear that being said, usually from older people, to me it sounds like the same kinds of things people have always said about protestors. Namely they're called lazy, interlopers, and generally treated with disgust. I don't know how different it is from say the attitudes about hippies in the 60s, but that the movement is explicitly about race tends to make the worst parts of people come out. The one thing I don't know about the movement at the moment are what kind of policy agendas they are pursuing, but that might be just a function of being largely decentralized. I've actually gotten to know quite a bit about this and related stories thanks to a friend of mine on Facebook who was at first against or perhaps indifferent to the movement at first. Then the thing with Bernie Sanders happened and she changed her tune completely because (paraphrasing her here) it was no longer possible to be black and neutral at the same time.

http://chainsawsuit.com/comic/2014/12/08/all-things-considered/

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

So I saw a poster for a meeting on "Black Lives Matter" here in the UK. While racism is still a problem here, I don't see how a load of recent shootings in the US have anything to do with racism here. 

Is it just undergrads being undergrads and assuming the whole world revolves around twitter, or is it a valid point in the UK too?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

So I saw a poster for a meeting on "Black Lives Matter" here in the UK. While racism is still a problem here, I don't see how a load of recent shootings in the US have anything to do with racism here. 

Is it just undergrads being undergrads and assuming the whole world revolves around twitter, or is it a valid point in the UK too?

There's institutionalised racism in every Western country to some degree; any movement or action that might help with this strikes me as a good thing (as does 'undergrads being undergrads' actually).

 

Taking 'black lives matter' as literally only being about black people being shot in the US is, in my view, a mistake.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

when i see stuff like this and see people respond with things along the lines of "they should have respected the authority of an officer" it scares me, because i feel those people are excusing an abusive system enforcing their rights with excessive violence on the public (which they are also part of).

 

but i know that if the victim was white, most of these people would be saying different things. 

 

Sometimes I feel Americans really want to live in a wild west/hollywood power fantasy...but thats another topic for another thread. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

What's scarier about the authority answer is that the police officer is probably thinking exactly that, and that's why they feel justified in their behaviour.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

and then the american dream is dead, because its people have willingly given the ones with the big sticks to do as they please, and the only thing a big stick is good for is beating something down. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I want to 'go on record' as it were to say that the teacher was complicit in the violence by allowing it to happen and merely saying that the student "should have cooperated."

 

Another student in the class was arrested because she stood up and started to defend (verbally) the girl in the video. Who, by the way, was in trouble for chewing gum in class. Yes, that's what this is about. She was chewing gum, so the teacher told her to leave the class and she didn't want to. Which, by the way, goes in the way of denying black people an education.

 

I added the link to http://www.joincampaignzero.org/ in the OP by the way. It was part of my original intent in making this thread because of how important this all is but I was... so mad yesterday. To be mild and non-dramatic about it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Guardian article.

 

Says this was about a phone in class, not chewing gum. Something else it mentions is that the deputy there is also a school monitor. Not that either of these details makes it less fucked up.

 

EDIT: this Independent article has a witness suggesting it was about gum. It also says "A third video of the incident also surfaced on Instagram. It shows the student throwing punches at the officer as he tries to remove her from her desk chair."

 

EDIT2: That third video is here, and shows her ineffectually batting her hands at his arm once he has her in a head-lock/choke-hold. That the Independent phrased that as "throwing punches" is pretty disgusting.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Taking 'black lives matter' as literally only being about black people being shot in the US is, in my view, a mistake.

Ok, I am not really in the know about the topic, I've only really heard it in response to the recent shootings. If the movement under that name has incorporated more then that's definitely a good thing.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

This CNN article seems to show a very shitty sheriff: http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/27/us/south-carolina-school-arrest-video/

"If she had not disrupted the school and disrupted that class, we would not be standing here today. So it started with her and it ended with my officer. What I'm going to deal with is what my deputy did," Lott said.

What an idiot, shift the blame to a 15 year old girl for chewing gum. Schools are such idiotic places now. Everything means a ticket, law enforcement, or whatever else because teachers feel scared or lazy. Near the end of time time in High School Texas law had some crap where you'd get ticketed for being absent from school too much as well, many students falling victim to this.

Then where the hell does CNN hire assholes like this?!

CNN law enforcement analyst Harry Houck cautioned against jumping to conclusions about Fields, even if the initial video "looks really bad."

If an officer decides to make an arrest, Houck said, he or she "can use whatever force is necessary."

"So if you don't comply with my wishes ... then I can do whatever it takes to get you out of that seat and put handcuffs on you," said Houck, a former New York police detective.


That's not even close to be fucking true. Why give this sucker a mouth piece? When a cop goes into assault mode, it's no longer about force. You don't get free reign as a cop to snap necks because someone won't peacefully get arrested. If it were any civilian pulling this shit they would be jailed on assault charges. Cops never get held to that standard when they use their job to go on a power trip.  http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/resisting-arrest-when-police-use-excessive-force.html

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

That's not even close to be fucking true. Why give this sucker a mouth piece? When a cop goes into assault mode, it's no longer about force. You don't get free reign as a cop to snap necks because someone won't peacefully get arrested. If it were any civilian pulling this shit they would be jailed on assault charges. Cops never get held to that standard when they use their job to go on a power trip.  http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/resisting-arrest-when-police-use-excessive-force.html

 

I love (okay, "hate" is the better term, but I have to maintain my ironic distance) that the answer in the United States during twenty-first century to Juvenal's iconic question, "Who watches the watchers," is, "We watchers watch each other. Trust us, it works. If you see someone getting threatened, abused, or killed by a watcher, trust the other watchers that we always have a good reason. Always do what we say!" It's beyond sickening, as is the brigade of people on every comment thread who blindly believe that obeying legal authorities in every imaginable instance will always keep a person safe.

 

I mean, when even the president can talk about being stopped for the offense of Driving While Black: http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/10/27/obamas-been-stopped-for-driving-while-black-made-sure-room-full-of-cops-knows-it-video/

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

What are the options that police are trained for (or not as the case may be) to deal with those who resist arrest?

 

I know nothing about police or how they work, but from a lay perspective, all they can do is tell someone to do something, and if they don't, use force to make them. Obviously there are different levels of force available - you don't need to shoot someone or throw someone across a room to get them to comply. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I don't think it's as much an issue of their options as it's an issue of them not being trained to recognise their biases and handle them to prevent flipping and over a black girl when they'd be more courteous to a rebellious white girl.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

If you're working as an actual peacekeeper then ideally you want to be in a position where you rarely have to tell anyone to do anything, where you primarily act as a mediator and voice of reason. There are situations where that's not feasible, but those situations are rare and mostly have to do with a person with a weapon who is actively escalating the situation. Anything short of that is something that you should be able to negotiate without violence.

 

Of course, that's assuming police are supposed to be peacekeepers, which is an appealing fantasy. Mostly their job, in practice, is to patrol class boundaries and make sure no one steps out of place. If we want police who actually protect and serve, there's a long way to go to make that happen.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I guess what gets to me the most is why there was a police officer called in for what seems to be a pretty minor display of teenage rebellion. It's not like she was running around the class.

Is that common in US schools? The only time police were ever at my school was when someone was caught with a shit load of drugs.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

That's really gross. Getting police involved with students seems so counter productive unless of course there's a real crime being committed. Being disruptive in class is a thing every kid does at one point or another. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

There was a "courtesy officer" at every school in my area through my high school career, 2000-04. It really kicked off after Columbine, and the rash of school shootings since then hasn't lowered demand for an armed authority figure on campus since then.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The option that they missed was calling the students' parents to have them remove her from the class. If what she was doing was SO BAD in the first place.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

There was a "courtesy officer" at every school in my area through my high school career, 2000-04. It really kicked off after Columbine, and the rash of school shootings since then hasn't lowered demand for an armed authority figure on campus since then.

Yeah I'd say about the same. People were really touchy about trench coats, camo pants, and band t-shirts as well.

 

I remember sometimes a cop would come to my elementary school in the early 90s because some third grader might or might not have flashed a gang sign. Seemed silly, but no one was arrested and I guess it was just an way overly safe thing to do. It was because Snoop Dogg was cool when he did the "west side" thing and his name was like Snoopy from the Peanuts except this guy smoked a ton of weed and was misogynist. 10 year olds eat that shit up.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Like I said, he was apparently a school monitor. I don't really know what that entails, but I guess that means he was at least on the grounds already?

 

He also had two prior complaints against him, one regarding excessive force.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×