Jump to content

Minneapolis is Burning


F250

Recommended Posts

56 minutes ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

I don't know if you all follow Karen Attiah on Twtter but she's not only easy on the eyes but a provocative, intelligent thinker.  Here she asks a very basic question:  why are White men like this asshole in Whitefish, Montana, so angry?  
 

 


well,  first there is chicago and also the fact that he’s not allowed to use the N word any longer but blacks can. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You can get by with a lot racist hatred in this country and not ruin your company’s brand if you don’t start every conversation with, “Look, as an attendee at the cross fit 6:30 class...I gotta lot of problems with the blacks and the Jews.” 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One of the interesting unexpected results of the increasingly volatile cultural divide is that a lot of these douches are bringing their racism into the public eye instead of the 19th hole at their club. It's about the only positive benefit, because occasionally you see a POS rich racist get a tiny bit of comeuppance. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

Because he's terrified.  He sees that white America will soon no longer represent the majority, and it has rustled his racist jimmies.

 

1 hour ago, Biff Tannen said:

This is the real answer.

He's a little like Pharoah. This fella heard the lamentations but turned a blind eye to the injustice and oppression and he hardened his heart. That doesn't make for a happy ending regardless of whether one believes in the Bible or lives in Chicago or New York City or Lufkin. Sooner or later, sometimes a lot later if the smitings don't get you, the waters will. Better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone, for the times they are a changing.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

46 minutes ago, Brothahorn said:

 

When Shaun King is a voice of reason..

I think that is a topic worthy of scrutiny and would guess that encompasses a lot factors.

- proportion of Dem v GOP urban run municipalities and comparative sample size

- size/density and likelihood of 3rd party video documentation

- likelihood of local population spreading/viralizing evidence of law enforcement abuse

- heightened antagonism of more conservative law enforcement culture operating in a broader more progressive culture of urban environments

- human nature's tendency to assign negative experiences with an exclusive "other" as characteristics of that group while assigning negative experiences with a mutual group as a characteristic of that individual.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Brothahorn said:

 

When Shaun King is a voice of reason..

 

The only people giving him props for this are MAGA folks, and they blame Dem for any and everything. 

This is very illogical, but it’s par for the course for Shaun King which is why he doesn’t have a voice.  He also steals and has been a fraud, and that is well known.  

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Worth viewing in its entirety. He pretty much wraps up the whole enchilada.

 

the last 3 minutes pack a hell of a punch...more than anything else i've seen, honestly. and she's 100% right...the US is lucky that what black people are looking for is equality and not revenge. damn. 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 minutes ago, Pancho said:

 

The only people giving him props for this are MAGA folks, and they blame Dem for any and everything. 

This is very illogical, but it’s par for the course for Shaun King which is why he doesn’t have a voice.  He also steals and has been a fraud, and that is well known.  

Actually it's very logical and speaks to my problem with the Democratic party and it's lack of accountability.

Quote

He also steals and has been a fraud, and that is well known

That part is true.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

My ex-wife had family in South Jersey and believe me those motherfuckers can be as racist as anybody anywhere except for maybe Georgia.
 

 

I always got this impression from personal experiences but didn't know if it was a thing

Edited by Bevo14
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Because he's terrified.  He sees that white America will soon no longer represent the majority, and it has rustled his racist jimmies.

I tend to think it is more complicated than this. Mediocrity across the board is unsettling. Maybe he thinks he deserves more or better and maybe he does, and maybe be bought the bankers lie. Maybe go fuck myself.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

13 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

FIF awful accuracy.

And if he loses in November.....the horrors of the next 5 months will pale in comparison to the horrors of his lame-duck 2.5 months till January 20th.

So just a question.  If after he loses the election and goes batshit cray, say they 25th him.  Then Pence pardons him.  Can they 25th Pence too?  

4 hours ago, Grade of D as in David said:

Seconded

 

And I'll go first.

spacer.png

Donald Trump

Lives in DC

Works in Fucks up the federal government.

FIFY

Edited by pyrohornIII
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've always wondered how this altering of the flag was seemingly acceptable in public discourse. 

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/06/09/the-short-fraught-history-of-the-thin-blue-line-american-flag-309767

 

Quote

As protests over policing continue to convulse cities throughout the U.S., one symbol keeps showing up: a black-and-white American flag with one blue stripe. 

Recently, the flag was flown from the back of a car alongside protests in South Dakota, and burned outside the Utah State Capitol. When deputies hoisted the flag outside government buildings in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Orange, California, the sheriffs in both communities were sharply criticized. Officers have worn versions of the flag on face masks while clashing with protesters in Baltimoreand Washington, D.C.

 

Quote

Those who fly the flag have said it stands for solidarity and professional pride within a dangerous, difficult profession and a solemn tribute to fallen police officers. But it has also been flown by white supremacists, appearing next to Confederate flags at the 2017 ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville. County officials in Oregon recently paid $100,000 to a black employee of a law enforcement agency there, after she said she was harassed by co-workers for complaining about her colleagues displaying the flag at work. 

Now, as police again become the focal point of a fight for racial equality in the U.S., the flag has returned to both mirror and amplify divisions.

But how did this flag come to be so pervasive? And what does it really stand for?

 

Quote

In 2014, a white college student named Andrew Jacob was watching protests of police killings of Eric Garner, Michael Brown and Tamir Rice. He had seen the image of the flag on patches and stickers, he told The Marshall Project, but not an actual flag. While in high school in West Bloomfield, Michigan, he had attended a memorial service for a police officer who had been killed on the job. 

Now, Jacob is the president of Thin Blue Line USA, one of the largest online retailers devoted exclusively to sales of pro-police flags, T-shirts, neckwear and jewelry. “The flag has no association with racism, hatred, bigotry,” he said. “It’s a flag to show support for law enforcement—no politics involved.” The company officially disavowed its use in Charlottesville.

 

Spoiler

Jacob said the flag was not a direct reaction to the first Black Lives Matter protests—an idea suggested by a previous origin story in Harper’s—but he allows he may have first seen the thin blue line image after those protests spurred the circulation of pro-police imagery online. “That’s maybe why it came to my eyes,” he said.

As Jacob built the company, a “Blue Lives Matter” movement was growing in the wake of news stories of multiple officers shot to death in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Brooklyn, New York; and Dallas, Texas. Meanwhile, Donald Trump, as a presidential candidate, called police “the force between civilization and total chaos.” Some states began passing laws to categorize physical attacks on law enforcement officers as hate crimes.

Police were not actually in greater danger than they had been before the Black Lives Matter movement. Ambush killings of police have actually declined more than 90 percent since 1970, even with the recent spikes, according to a study by Michael White, a professor of criminology at Arizona State University. White understands how the thin blue line flag has become a part of police culture, and that officers may view it as a sign of solidarity, but he also worries about the message it sends to the public. 

“It fosters this ‘us versus them’ mentality,” he said. “The police and community together should work together, in order to produce safety. Each should respect the role of the other. If you're looking at the community as a potential enemy, or a threat, that’s certainly going to hinder any positive relationship.” 

Before the flag came the phrase.

The idea of a “thin blue line” can be traced all the way back to an 1854 British battle formation, a “thin red line” used during the Crimean War and then popularized in art, poetry and song. According to lawyers James Clapp and Elizabeth Thornburg, who have dug up the history behind popular phrases, the idea migrated to other professions, with other colors, from a “thin white line of bishops” to a “thin blue line of public schoolboys in blazers.” 

It was occasionally used for police, they write. But that usage caught on in 1922, after New York police commissioner Richard Enright, facing criticism of his leadership, mentioned it in a public relations effort. The phrase started showing up in speeches by politicians and related news coverage from Chicago to Los Angeles. 

In the 1950s, “The Thin Blue Line” was the title of a short-lived television show about the Los Angeles Police Department, masterminded by the chief, William H. Parker, who took advantage of Hollywood’s proximity to make public relations a key part of his tenure. He also opened up the department’s files to the writers of “Dragnet.”

Parker was known for unambiguous racism. He said some immigrants were “not far removed from the wild tribes of Mexico” and compared black residents participating in the 1965 Watts Riots—which stemmed in part from anger over his own department’s mistreatment—to “monkeys in a zoo.” 

Parker used the phrase “thin blue line” constantly in his speeches. The phrase was further popularized by the novels of Joseph Wambaugh, himself a former police officer in Los Angeles, and it typified Parker’s philosophy: Having served in the military, he wanted to end corruption and professionalize the police force. 

In his view, the police “protected Western civilization from communists, progressive politicians, minorities, anybody who agitated for something that didn’t fit his very narrow scheme,” said Alisa Kramer, who wrote a 2007 dissertation on Parker’s tenure. “There are a lot of parallels between Parker and Trump; Parker had no understanding of the complexities of poverty and racism.” 

After Parker’s sudden death in 1966, the city named the police headquarters after him. The Parker Center went on to be a primary site of protests in 1992 after the acquittal of the police officers who beat Rodney King. 

Parker’s tenure augured a bigger shift toward militarism in police departments, which came to buy military gear directly from the Department of Defense. Criminologists Don L. Kurtz and Alayna Colburn have analyzed the language police officers use in formal interviews, and argue that the “thin blue line” idea is an example of popular culture informing internal police culture, highlighting “the assumed differences between officers and citizens and further progresses an ‘us versus them’ mentality among officers.” 

The phrase gained another boost with Errol Morris’ 1988 film “The Thin Blue Line,” in which a Dallas judge quotes a prosecutor describing what separates “the public from anarchy.” The title was ironic, if not sly, since the film depicted how law enforcement sent an innocent man to death row. 

Over the years, officers around the country occasionally placed stickers of a blue line surrounded by black on their cars. After the ambush of Dallas officers in 2016, the flag became a common sight in yards and on bumper stickers around the city, along with “Back the Blue” and “Thank a Cop” signs. Mourners wore blue neckties and hair ribbons at the funeral service, but the fallen officers’ caskets were draped with American flags.

Dallas Police Sgt. Stephen Bishopp has a doctorate degree and has studied police stress, use of force and officer misconduct. The “thin blue line” symbol existed before several of his colleagues were gunned down by a sniper in July 2016, he said. To him, it symbolizes respect and understanding for the families of officers killed in the line of duty—including suicides.

“When I see that flag as a sticker on a car or flying in someone’s yard, I know that there is someone there that knows what I’m going through. They know because they are a part of the family,” Bishopp said. “I don’t really care if it bothers people or hurts their feelings to see that flag. I absolutely could care less. I am proud of what I do, the people I work with, and the ones who have died defending the rights of strangers. I will continue to fly that flag until my very last day.”

Social media allows for endless remixing, and the offerings now appear infinite. You can buy a sticker that mixes the imagery with the Disney World logo. You can buy a dog tag necklace, with Matthew 5:9 engraved on the back: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” Law enforcement officers can buy a special edition Sig Sauer pistol covered with the flag and blue line. 

But as the images have multiplied, so have the meanings. The American flag and blue line have often been blended with the image of a skull associated with the Punisher comic book hero. A Marine turned vigilante who first appeared in Marvel comics in 1974, the Punisher fought crime through extrajudicial murder and torture. “Police should not be embracing a criminal as their symbol,” the character’s creator, Gerry Conway, told Syfy Wire last year. “In a way, it’s as offensive as putting a Confederate flag on a government building.” 

Although the flag’s manufacturers have tried to keep politics away from the flag, the current protests over the death of George Floyd have thrust the image into larger debates. In Cold Spring, New York, local leaders debated last week whether placing a decal of the flag on a police car would make some people afraid to ask officers for help. In Montclair, New Jersey, a police leader begged residents on a Zoom call not to view the flag as a “symbol of racism.”

“We’ve seen trucks riding around with big old versions,” said Melina Abdullah, a co-founder of the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter, about the protests in recent days. “It feels akin to a Confederate flag.” She has also noticed the flag’s image on police and other government-owned vehicles, and she sees this as evidence that even self-described liberal officials are not doing enough to combat white supremacy. “The supposed ‘liberal’ answer to Donald Trump has not been as critical of police violence as it should be,” she said.

Police officers themselves are also not speaking uniformly about the flag. Last month, San Francisco’s chief of police, Bill Scott, banned his officers from wearing face masks emblazoned with the thin blue line flag, worrying they would be seen as “divisive and disrespectful.” The masks had been distributed by the local police union, which accused the department of failing to provide masks. “We did it as a morale booster for each other,” union president Tony Montoya said, “not as a political statement.”

Local skirmishes and letters to the editor in various states have questioned whether the thin blue line flag is a violation of the U.S. Flag Code, which specifically states: “The flag should never have placed upon it, nor any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature.” 

Despite that language, the American flag is depicted in many other ways for a number of purposes, many commercial. Still, the American Legion, which played a key role in drafting the Flag Code and is the go-to authority on proper U.S. flag etiquette, has not taken an official position yet on the black-and-white version with a blue line, a spokesman told The Marshall Project.

 

 

 

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

Ben Shapiro may quit watching sports.  As one twitterer said, imagine if this entitled little asshole had ever experience an ounce of oppression in his life.
 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

30 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

I've always wondered how this altering of the flag was seemingly acceptable in public discourse. 

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/06/09/the-short-fraught-history-of-the-thin-blue-line-american-flag-309767

 

 

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Jacob said the flag was not a direct reaction to the first Black Lives Matter protests—an idea suggested by a previous origin story in Harper’s—but he allows he may have first seen the thin blue line image after those protests spurred the circulation of pro-police imagery online. “That’s maybe why it came to my eyes,” he said.

As Jacob built the company, a “Blue Lives Matter” movement was growing in the wake of news stories of multiple officers shot to death in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Brooklyn, New York; and Dallas, Texas. Meanwhile, Donald Trump, as a presidential candidate, called police “the force between civilization and total chaos.” Some states began passing laws to categorize physical attacks on law enforcement officers as hate crimes.

Police were not actually in greater danger than they had been before the Black Lives Matter movement. Ambush killings of police have actually declined more than 90 percent since 1970, even with the recent spikes, according to a study by Michael White, a professor of criminology at Arizona State University. White understands how the thin blue line flag has become a part of police culture, and that officers may view it as a sign of solidarity, but he also worries about the message it sends to the public. 

“It fosters this ‘us versus them’ mentality,” he said. “The police and community together should work together, in order to produce safety. Each should respect the role of the other. If you're looking at the community as a potential enemy, or a threat, that’s certainly going to hinder any positive relationship.” 

Before the flag came the phrase.

The idea of a “thin blue line” can be traced all the way back to an 1854 British battle formation, a “thin red line” used during the Crimean War and then popularized in art, poetry and song. According to lawyers James Clapp and Elizabeth Thornburg, who have dug up the history behind popular phrases, the idea migrated to other professions, with other colors, from a “thin white line of bishops” to a “thin blue line of public schoolboys in blazers.” 

It was occasionally used for police, they write. But that usage caught on in 1922, after New York police commissioner Richard Enright, facing criticism of his leadership, mentioned it in a public relations effort. The phrase started showing up in speeches by politicians and related news coverage from Chicago to Los Angeles. 

In the 1950s, “The Thin Blue Line” was the title of a short-lived television show about the Los Angeles Police Department, masterminded by the chief, William H. Parker, who took advantage of Hollywood’s proximity to make public relations a key part of his tenure. He also opened up the department’s files to the writers of “Dragnet.”

Parker was known for unambiguous racism. He said some immigrants were “not far removed from the wild tribes of Mexico” and compared black residents participating in the 1965 Watts Riots—which stemmed in part from anger over his own department’s mistreatment—to “monkeys in a zoo.” 

Parker used the phrase “thin blue line” constantly in his speeches. The phrase was further popularized by the novels of Joseph Wambaugh, himself a former police officer in Los Angeles, and it typified Parker’s philosophy: Having served in the military, he wanted to end corruption and professionalize the police force. 

In his view, the police “protected Western civilization from communists, progressive politicians, minorities, anybody who agitated for something that didn’t fit his very narrow scheme,” said Alisa Kramer, who wrote a 2007 dissertation on Parker’s tenure. “There are a lot of parallels between Parker and Trump; Parker had no understanding of the complexities of poverty and racism.” 

After Parker’s sudden death in 1966, the city named the police headquarters after him. The Parker Center went on to be a primary site of protests in 1992 after the acquittal of the police officers who beat Rodney King. 

Parker’s tenure augured a bigger shift toward militarism in police departments, which came to buy military gear directly from the Department of Defense. Criminologists Don L. Kurtz and Alayna Colburn have analyzed the language police officers use in formal interviews, and argue that the “thin blue line” idea is an example of popular culture informing internal police culture, highlighting “the assumed differences between officers and citizens and further progresses an ‘us versus them’ mentality among officers.” 

The phrase gained another boost with Errol Morris’ 1988 film “The Thin Blue Line,” in which a Dallas judge quotes a prosecutor describing what separates “the public from anarchy.” The title was ironic, if not sly, since the film depicted how law enforcement sent an innocent man to death row. 

Over the years, officers around the country occasionally placed stickers of a blue line surrounded by black on their cars. After the ambush of Dallas officers in 2016, the flag became a common sight in yards and on bumper stickers around the city, along with “Back the Blue” and “Thank a Cop” signs. Mourners wore blue neckties and hair ribbons at the funeral service, but the fallen officers’ caskets were draped with American flags.

Dallas Police Sgt. Stephen Bishopp has a doctorate degree and has studied police stress, use of force and officer misconduct. The “thin blue line” symbol existed before several of his colleagues were gunned down by a sniper in July 2016, he said. To him, it symbolizes respect and understanding for the families of officers killed in the line of duty—including suicides.

“When I see that flag as a sticker on a car or flying in someone’s yard, I know that there is someone there that knows what I’m going through. They know because they are a part of the family,” Bishopp said. “I don’t really care if it bothers people or hurts their feelings to see that flag. I absolutely could care less. I am proud of what I do, the people I work with, and the ones who have died defending the rights of strangers. I will continue to fly that flag until my very last day.”

Social media allows for endless remixing, and the offerings now appear infinite. You can buy a sticker that mixes the imagery with the Disney World logo. You can buy a dog tag necklace, with Matthew 5:9 engraved on the back: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” Law enforcement officers can buy a special edition Sig Sauer pistol covered with the flag and blue line. 

But as the images have multiplied, so have the meanings. The American flag and blue line have often been blended with the image of a skull associated with the Punisher comic book hero. A Marine turned vigilante who first appeared in Marvel comics in 1974, the Punisher fought crime through extrajudicial murder and torture. “Police should not be embracing a criminal as their symbol,” the character’s creator, Gerry Conway, told Syfy Wire last year. “In a way, it’s as offensive as putting a Confederate flag on a government building.” 

Although the flag’s manufacturers have tried to keep politics away from the flag, the current protests over the death of George Floyd have thrust the image into larger debates. In Cold Spring, New York, local leaders debated last week whether placing a decal of the flag on a police car would make some people afraid to ask officers for help. In Montclair, New Jersey, a police leader begged residents on a Zoom call not to view the flag as a “symbol of racism.”

“We’ve seen trucks riding around with big old versions,” said Melina Abdullah, a co-founder of the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter, about the protests in recent days. “It feels akin to a Confederate flag.” She has also noticed the flag’s image on police and other government-owned vehicles, and she sees this as evidence that even self-described liberal officials are not doing enough to combat white supremacy. “The supposed ‘liberal’ answer to Donald Trump has not been as critical of police violence as it should be,” she said.

Police officers themselves are also not speaking uniformly about the flag. Last month, San Francisco’s chief of police, Bill Scott, banned his officers from wearing face masks emblazoned with the thin blue line flag, worrying they would be seen as “divisive and disrespectful.” The masks had been distributed by the local police union, which accused the department of failing to provide masks. “We did it as a morale booster for each other,” union president Tony Montoya said, “not as a political statement.”

Local skirmishes and letters to the editor in various states have questioned whether the thin blue line flag is a violation of the U.S. Flag Code, which specifically states: “The flag should never have placed upon it, nor any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature.” 

Despite that language, the American flag is depicted in many other ways for a number of purposes, many commercial. Still, the American Legion, which played a key role in drafting the Flag Code and is the go-to authority on proper U.S. flag etiquette, has not taken an official position yet on the black-and-white version with a blue line, a spokesman told The Marshall Project.

 

 

 

The police station on the edge of my neighborhood is flying this shit directly below the American flag.  Even in the sticks, pigs are scumbags. 

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

Ben Shapiro may quit watching sports.  As one twitterer said, imagine if this entitled little asshole had ever experience an ounce of oppression in his life.
 

 

Bari Weiss told me it was liberal campuses that created the safe space culture. How can this be?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Horn Dog said:

Yes all cancers matter.  So does it upset you when you see those pink ribbons in October when women try to bring specific attention to one of their leading causes of death?  Do you take that as a statement of women don’t care about lung or prostate cancer? 

No, Breast cancer doesn't effect only women, and they don't tell men that they must be allies, or that they are sexist.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, Pancho said:

 

I have no doubt they are frustrated.  But this falls squarely in the "clean your own house" category.  If the cops had spent the last few decades making sure they were beholden to the same laws as the citizens they enforce the law against, then they wouldn't be seeing this kind of backlash.  Get in front of the problem officers, and show us what you're doing to make improvements in your unions and departments.  Until that happens, you aren't going to garner much sympathy if your just the one standing by tsk-tsk-ing while your comrades are suffocating citizens with their knees. 

  • Like 9
Link to comment
Share on other sites



×
×
  • Create New...