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Running thread of white people calling cops on people of color for everyday stuff...


Pancho

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3 minutes ago, Pancho Negro said:

 

Well, but see....maybe you missed something.

He's black.  Obviously a thug.  Should have just complied with everything the cop said and did, and all would be fine.  I mean, sure, he'd have been arrested for no good reason, would spend the night or longer in jail for no good reason, and would face charges of resisting arrest even if he DIDN'T tell the cop to leave him alone, but still....thug had what was coming to him.  

Delete the middle part, and I guarantee you that is how millions of folks will react to that video.

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racism happens. all the time. the problem is when you discuss these individual cases.

known: sometimes whites treat blacks negatively based on their race. this black person was treated negatively by a white person.

conclusion: this white person treated this black person negatively because of their race.

if that is your conclusion, you fail.

the problem is people make mistakes all the time. but there is this feeling out there that white people can not make mistakes when it comes to black people unless they are racist. it is just an impossible standard to live up to.

 

 

 

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9 minutes ago, po elvis said:

racism happens. all the time. the problem is when you discuss these individual cases.

known: sometimes whites treat blacks negatively based on their race. this black person was treated negatively by a white person.

conclusion: this white person treated this black person negatively because of their race.

if that is your conclusion, you fail.

the problem is people make mistakes all the time. but there is this feeling out there that white people can not make mistakes when it comes to black people unless they are racist. it is just an impossible standard to live up to.

 

 

 

Deflections don’t help.  No, you can’t identify people’s motives with 100% certainty.  But you can do it well enough that we ask 12 people to unanimously make prison decisions on it every day.  

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1 minute ago, SuingToGetAMessageBoard? said:

Deflections don’t help.  No, you can’t identify people’s motives with 100% certainty.  But you can do it well enough that we ask 12 people to unanimously make prison decisions on it every day.  

no, you can not do it well enough with the amount of information known in most of the cases posted. knowing the color of the two parties is not enough. don't get me started on courtrooms. we convict way too many people. way too many. people are too scared of letting a guilty person free, when they really should be way more scared to convict an innocent person.

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24 minutes ago, po elvis said:

racism happens. all the time. the problem is when you discuss these individual cases.

known: sometimes whites treat blacks negatively based on their race. this black person was treated negatively by a white person.

conclusion: this white person treated this black person negatively because of their race.

if that is your conclusion, you fail.

the problem is people make mistakes all the time. but there is this feeling out there that white people can not make mistakes when it comes to black people unless they are racist. it is just an impossible standard to live up to.

 

 

 

What you're not seeing is that race can (and often is) involved in the entire process.  Would the cops even have been CALLED on some white kids at the Waffle House?  If so, would he have approached them with a "guys, you need to keep it down, and probably need to head on home," or would he have dealt with them like some black kids got dealt with - "get up, put your hands behind your back?"  When they went outside, would he have put hands on a white kid as quickly as he did the black kid? 

Shit like this happens for the same reasons that planes crash -- not because ONE thing went wrong, but because 10 things in order went wrong.

Yes, cops treat white people like shit, too.

Yes, when a white person treats a black person like this, race definitely enters the mind of the audience.  So, society has given white folks their own set of eggshells to walk on.  Black kids at the Waffle House know they had better be better behaved than white kids, or they might get the cops called on them.  And white folks know that when dealing with black kids at the Waffle House, they need to tread carefully and be extra mindful of giving them a fair shake.  It's the flipside of the same damned coin.

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35 minutes ago, po elvis said:

racism happens. all the time. the problem is when you discuss these individual cases.

known: sometimes whites treat blacks negatively based on their race. this black person was treated negatively by a white person.

conclusion: this white person treated this black person negatively because of their race.

if that is your conclusion, you fail.

the problem is people make mistakes all the time. but there is this feeling out there that white people can not make mistakes when it comes to black people unless they are racist. it is just an impossible standard to live up to.

 

 

 

This is the stupidest thing I have seen posted on Surly, and I post here all the time.

Edited by Hank Scorpio
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2 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

What you're not seeing is that race can (and often is) involved in the entire process.  Would the cops even have been CALLED on some white kids at the Waffle House?  If so, would he have approached them with a "guys, you need to keep it down, and probably need to head on home," or would he have dealt with them like some black kids got dealt with - "get up, put your hands behind your back?"  When they went outside, would he have put hands on a white kid as quickly as he did the black kid? 

Shit like this happens for the same reasons that planes crash -- not because ONE thing went wrong, but because 10 things in order went wrong.

Yes, cops treat white people like shit, too.

Yes, when a white person treats a black person like this, race definitely enters the mind of the audience.  So, society has given white folks their own set of eggshells to walk on.  Black kids at the Waffle House know they had better be better behaved than white kids, or they might get the cops called on them.  And white folks know that when dealing with black kids at the Waffle House, they need to tread carefully and be extra mindful of giving them a fair shake.  It's the flipside of the same damned coin.

I’ll just leave this here: http://abc11.com/warsaw-police-investigate-after-viral-video-of-officer-putting-man-in-chokehold/3451147/

You’re right, it’s pretty fucking racist of the Waffle House employees to call the cops on someone that self admits that they took things too far on private property. (With partial video evidence to prove the escalation) It’s not like cops are sworn to protect citizens or deescalate a volatile situation. Minorities most be the only victims of perceived overly aggressive behavior from law enforcement, which is why the cop is obviously a racist piece of shit. I’d be interested in seeing the 15 seconds before the start of the clip. You know, for shits and giggles. No doubt the N-word was tossed out like a hot potato while a lynching was threatened. Probably left his gun and taser in the car, which is the only reason the dude walked away from it.

It’s shocking that none of the background info was mentioned by those retweeting an agenda though. You’d think that they would want ALL of the info before using footage of an aggressive cop, who is not even a Waffle House employee, to cry wolf and call for a boycott. I mean...the poor dude just took his sister to prom and was violated in a tux! It would have been better PR if he was also crippled and accepted to several respected colleges though. Can’t win them all, I suppose.

As a white guy, I’ll say 4 Hail Trumps and 3 Our Pelosis to do my part. There will be a moment of silence at our monthly meeting while our women clutch the pearls in disgust.

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No way. Surly had led me to believe this was another incident of white people acting white around people of color. I’m stunned this guy was acting disorderly prior to the cops being called. 

At least we got some pre-facts Brisket sanctimony out of this ordeal. 

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9 minutes ago, Rex Kramer said:

No way. Surly had led me to believe this was another incident of white people acting white around people of color. I’m stunned this guy was acting disorderly prior to the cops being called. 

At least we got some pre-facts Brisket sanctimony out of this ordeal. 

Huh.  See exactly what I said before.

2 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Would the cops even have been CALLED on some white kids at the Waffle House?  If so, would he have approached them with a "guys, you need to keep it down, and probably need to head on home," or would he have dealt with them like some black kids got dealt with - "get up, put your hands behind your back?"

Which relate to the single fact we have from the cited story:

Quote

when he said he got into an argument with several wait staff members.

So, guy "got into an argument with several wait staff members."  That's the fact that we have.  What I said above stands.  In IDENTICAL circumstances, except its a white kid arguing with waitstaff....would the cops have been called?  When they showed up, would they have treated the guy deferentially, and told him he needs to pack up and head home?  Would they have put hands on him?  I've seen white guys mouthing off to a waitress or bartender, and security or a cop tells him he needs to close out his tab and head out.  In fairness and full disclosure, I have also seen a white guy get his head smashed in in such a situation.

Every one of those is a pivot point.

Sure, until we see video of EXACTLY what happened inside, we don't know for sure what the answers to every one of these questions should be.

What is true regardless of any specific incident is that those questions have to be asked.  Time and time again.

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4 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Huh.  See exactly what I said before.

Which relate to the single fact we have from the cited story:

So, guy "got into an argument with several wait staff members."  That's the fact that we have.  What I said above stands.  In IDENTICAL circumstances, except its a white kid arguing with waitstaff....would the cops have been called?  When they showed up, would they have treated the guy deferentially, and told him he needs to pack up and head home?  Would they have put hands on him?  I've seen white guys mouthing off to a waitress or bartender, and security or a cop tells him he needs to close out his tab and head out.  In fairness and full disclosure, I have also seen a white guy get his head smashed in in such a situation.

Every one of those is a pivot point.

Sure, until we see video of EXACTLY what happened inside, we don't know for sure what the answers to every one of these questions should be.

What is true regardless of any specific incident is that those questions have to be asked.  Time and time again.

I miss Pre-Trump Brisket. He was a rational dude. You would have liked him.

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1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

Yeah....didn't see that part of the clip at first.  Yep, I'd have called the cops too.

And they would’ve been called on white kids too, and if a white kid was yelling and resisting, he would’ve been treated in the same manner. 

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My point is making this thread was because there's a sense that something different has been going on with blacks (and POCs) since November 2016.  I'm not sure if technology has just made us more aware or what, but as a black guy, shit just feels...different.  And then we get evidence of some of this stuff and it just makes you angry.  Could I be next?  Some of these incidents are clearly just white people calling the cops on random black people for nothing.  But I'm 100% honest in saying that there are incidents across the country where blacks, Latinx, and whoever else did something wrong and should be rightfully arrested as so. 

I guess my purpose in starting this thread is to allow those who don't believe stuff is happening or who refuse to believe it (or who say "i've never see that") to see that yes, it's happening.  I think where anger comes into play is those who say these are isolated incidents. 

Very rarely in these incidents (Starbucks, Yale, etc.) do we see cops sticking up for people of color.  Where are more of those stories?  Seems like POC are automatically labled as suspicious.  Rough and harrass first, then ask questions later. 

This is from my perspective.  I'm also a minority...a minority who has his insurance card literally taped to my car visor so a cop won't think I'm reaching for something. (then again i'm light skinned and sophisticated.)

 

I dunno...just wish more people would realize something is going on instead of saying "the same thing would happen if they were white."  If that's true, where are those tapes? 

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I've got zero qualms with this thread. If Pancho is on a mission to remind us racism still exists in our society, more power to him. Raising awareness isn't a bad thing.

As a white guy raised in Texas, I don't mind the reminder. I was raised to fear and dislike browns and blacks, and unfortunately that's part of my programming (see the subconscious threat mapping discussed above). So, I do appreciate the occassional reminder to check my shit.

To those of y'all who don't have a scintilla of racist thought lingering in your synapses, I envy you and think maybe this thread isn't meant for your browsing or participation. Fine. Don't click on it. For those who are getting defensive, maybe this is one you actually should follow.

Pancho, keep at it. Maybe just compile everything in this one thread as an ongoing project so that disnterested or offended parties can avoid the topic all together.

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Race is the central story of America. There’s a feeling by some that we’re past it - we will never be past it, at least not in our lifetimes or that of our children or grandchildren. Irrespective of what’s going on in other countries, we should talk about it and analyze it. I often hold doubt about the racial aspects of certain stories, I think because I’m an optimist when it comes to people. But it happens a lot, in varying degrees and in varying ways.

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1 hour ago, Pancho Negro said:

My point is making this thread was because there's a sense that something different has been going on with blacks (and POCs) since November 2016.  I'm not sure if technology has just made us more aware or what, but as a black guy, shit just feels...different.  And then we get evidence of some of this stuff and it just makes you angry.  Could I be next?  Some of these incidents are clearly just white people calling the cops on random black people for nothing.  But I'm 100% honest in saying that there are incidents across the country where blacks, Latinx, and whoever else did something wrong and should be rightfully arrested as so. 

I guess my purpose in starting this thread is to allow those who don't believe stuff is happening or who refuse to believe it (or who say "i've never see that") to see that yes, it's happening.  I think where anger comes into play is those who say these are isolated incidents. 

Very rarely in these incidents (Starbucks, Yale, etc.) do we see cops sticking up for people of color.  Where are more of those stories?  Seems like POC are automatically labled as suspicious.  Rough and harrass first, then ask questions later. 

This is from my perspective.  I'm also a minority...a minority who has his insurance card literally taped to my car visor so a cop won't think I'm reaching for something. (then again i'm light skinned and sophisticated.)

 

I dunno...just wish more people would realize something is going on instead of saying "the same thing would happen if they were white."  If that's true, where are those tapes? 

You showed a video that went viral. It went viral because of idiots, some of whom intentionally showed only part of the story. And now that your video has been called into question, you write this sort of emotional plea?

You hurt your cause by not acknowledging that you posted bullshit, and by not acknowledging the same treatment would’ve been administered to a white boy. You know that, and you know those “tapes” aren’t made because a tape of an unruly white boy acting like a moron and resisting a cop’s orders is not a tape that would go viral. 

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https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/12/upshot/surprising-new-evidence-shows-bias-in-police-use-of-force-but-not-in-shootings.html

It's complicated.

Spoiler

A new study confirms that black men and women are treated differently in the hands of law enforcement. They are more likely to be touched, handcuffed, pushed to the ground or pepper-sprayed by a police officer, even after accounting for how, where and when they encounter the police.

But when it comes to the most lethal form of force — police shootings — the study finds no racial bias.

“It is the most surprising result of my career,” said Roland G. Fryer Jr., the author of the study and a professor of economics at Harvard. The study examined more than 1,000 shootings in 10 major police departments, in Texas, Florida and California.

The result contradicts the image of police shootings that many Americans hold after the killings (some captured on video) of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.; Tamir Rice in Cleveland; Walter Scott in South Carolina; Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, La.; and Philando Castile in Minnesota.

The study did not say whether the most egregious examples — those at the heart of the nation’s debate on police shootings — are free of racial bias. Instead, it examined a larger pool of shootings, including nonfatal ones.

The counterintuitive results provoked debate after the study was posted on Monday, mostly about the volume of police encounters and the scope of the data. Mr. Fryer emphasizes that the work is not the definitive analysis of police shootings, and that more data would be needed to understand the country as a whole. This work focused only on what happens once the police have stopped civilians, not on the risk of being stopped at all. Other research has shown that blacks are more likely to be stopped by the police.


Mr. Fryer, the youngest African-American to receive tenure at Harvard and the first to win a John Bates Clark medal, a prize given to the most promising American economist under 40, said anger after the deaths of Michael Brown, Freddie Gray and others drove him to study the issue. “You know, protesting is not my thing,” he said. “But data is my thing. So I decided that I was going to collect a bunch of data and try to understand what really is going on when it comes to racial differences in police use of force.”

He and student researchers spent about 3,000 hours assembling detailed data from police reports in Houston; Austin, Tex.; Dallas; Los Angeles; Orlando, Fla.; Jacksonville, Fla.; and four other counties in Florida.

They examined 1,332 shootings between 2000 and 2015, coding police narratives to answer questions such as: How old was the suspect? How many police officers were at the scene? Were they mostly white? Was the officer at the scene for a robbery, violent activity, a traffic stop or something else? Was it nighttime? Did the officer shoot after being attacked or before a possible attack? One goal was to determine if police officers were quicker to fire at black suspects.


In shootings in these 10 cities involving officers, officers were more likely to fire their weapons without having first been attacked when the suspects were white. Black and white civilians involved in police shootings were equally likely to have been carrying a weapon. Both results undercut the idea of racial bias in police use of lethal force.

But police shootings are only part of the picture. What about situations in which an officer might be expected to fire, but doesn’t?

To answer this, Mr. Fryer focused on one city, Houston. The Police Department there let the researchers look at reports not only for shootings but also for arrests when lethal force might have been justified. Mr. Fryer defined this group to include encounters with suspects the police subsequently charged with serious offenses like attempting to murder an officer, or evading or resisting arrest. He also considered suspects shocked with Tasers.

Mr. Fryer found that in such situations, officers in Houston were about 20 percent less likely to shoot if the suspects were black. This estimate was not precise, and firmer conclusions would require more data. But in various models controlling for different factors and using different definitions of tense situations, Mr. Fryer found that blacks were either less likely to be shot or there was no difference between blacks and whites.

The study, a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, relied on reports filled out by police officers and on police departments willing to share those reports. Recent videos of police shootings have led to questions about the reliability of such accounts. But the results were largely the same whether or not Mr. Fryer used information from narratives by officers.

Such results may not be true in every city. The cities Mr. Fryer used to examine officer-involved shootings make up only about 4 percent of the nation’s population, and serve more black citizens than average.

Moreover, the results do not mean that the general public’s perception of racism in policing is misguided. Lethal uses of force are exceedingly rare. There were 1.6 million arrests in Houston in the years Mr. Fryer studied. Officers fired their weapons 507 times. What is far more common are nonlethal uses of force.

And in these uses of force, Mr. Fryer found racial differences, which is in accord with public perception and other studies.

In New York City, blacks stopped by the police were about 17 percent more likely to experience use of force, according to stop-and-frisk records kept between 2003 and 2013. (In the later year, a judge ruled that the tactic as employed then was unconstitutional.)


That gap, adjusted for suspect behavior and other factors, was surprisingly consistent across various levels of force. Black suspects were 18 percent more likely to be pushed up against a wall, 16 percent more likely to be handcuffed without being arrested and 18 percent more likely to be pushed to the ground.

Even when the police said that civilians were compliant, blacks experienced more force.
Mr. Fryer also explored racial differences in force from the viewpoint of civilians, using data from a nationally representative survey conducted by the federal government. Here, he found racial gaps in force that were larger than those he found in the data reported from the officers’ perspective. But these gaps were also consistent across many different types of force.


This is not news to the black community. It’s at the root of the “talk” that many black parents give to their sons and daughters about how to approach interactions with the police.

Mr. Fryer wonders if the divide between lethal force — where he did not find racial disparities — and nonlethal force — where he did — might be related to costs. Officers face costs, legal and psychological, when they unnecessarily fire their guns. But excessive use of lesser force is rarely tracked or punished. “No officer has ever told me that putting their hands on inner-city youth is a life-changing event,” he said.

For Mr. Fryer, who has spent much of his career studying ways society can close the racial achievement gap, the failure to punish excessive everyday force is an important contributor to young black disillusionment.

“Who the hell wants to have a police officer put their hand on them or yell and scream at them? It’s an awful experience,” he said. “Every black man I know has had this experience. Every one of them. It is hard to believe that the world is your oyster if the police can rough you up without punishment. And when I talked to minority youth, almost every single one of them mentions lower-level uses of force as the reason why they believe the world is corrupt.”

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So, what's the consensus, if any, on going all Uncle Tom in an arrest/interrogation situation?

I agree that people SHOULDN"T have to submit to unlawful exercise of authority, but once one is taking place, isn't it better to be quiet and compliant?

I'm much more sympathetic to the Yale and airbnb victims that to Mr. Worldstar Waffle House.  And there's a certain segment of society, the one that needs to be reached, that will say that Worldstar Waffle House got what he richly deserved.  So, has his not-so-passive resistance served anyone?  It got his ass kinda beat on, to boot.

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8 hours ago, Dahobbs said:

I honestly don't understand what point you are making. Frankly, I'm not entirely sure we are using the same meaning of "institutionalized." Racism is a thing. It is bad. You agree with that. Racism can occur do to conscious thought, and that is definitely the thing we've targeted most of our resources to fixing. But, unconscious racism also exists. As mentioned previously, it is connected to the pattern mapping portion of our brains that has been taught through experience and repetition (even if those experiences were on TV or through stories) that we should be afraid of people of certain color. It happens without our direct knowledge, and sometimes even in spite of our efforts to resist it. It isn't a moral failing for a person to experience it. But it is a moral failing if the person refuses to even consider the possibility that it happens. 

Probably none, at least to the extent the institutionalization relates to subconscious racism? We fear things different from ourselves. Probably always will. I don't know why identifying times where that innate emotion has negatively presented itself is bad?

Yeah, it's more acute here because we have a) the largest number of whites and browns/blacks in close proximity and have had for more than a century, affecting policies deeply and b) unlike the few other places that may have somewhat similar demographics (South Africa, for example) we actually hold ourselves out as a nation of equality, and, as poorly as we have often done with it, it actually means something or we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

A lot of countries with arguably better race records than the US have never dealt with a large minority population suddenly thrust together as equals before the law.  The POCs were unequal and also not present until decades or a century after they were made equal.

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On ‎5‎/‎9‎/‎2018 at 11:49 AM, High Plains Drifter said:

I had a black roommate in college. He drove me down to S. Austin one afternoon to pick up some stuff from my parents house. I went inside while he waited in the car. I was inside for probably 5 minutes. When I went back out, the po po had showed up. My roommate was spread-eagled against the car getting frisked.

Neighbors had called the cops.

I had three black roommates in grad school, one of whom was my best friend.

I have way too many stories like that.

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12 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

I had three black roommates in grad school, one of whom was my best friend.

I have way too many stories like that.

OK, here's one...

There was a bar about 10 blocks uphill from us that had Dollar Night on Mondays -- any drink for $1.

So my best friend and I would walk uphill every Monday with $10 in our pockets, get 7-8 of the strongest drinks we could order, tip the poor bartender $2-3, and then literally stumble downhill back to our apartment.  

I usually stumbled faster than he did (black folks walk so slow!), so I'd get ahead of him and beat him back by a couple of blocks.  

Except for the two times a police car appeared out of the shadows with its lights flashing, officer hopped out, confronted him, and then threw him up against the car and searched him.  And after the second time, I made sure that I stayed with him on the way home.  

 

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On the whole, I don't doubt that being a black male puts a target on you regarding police interactions and police violence. If the article I posted earlier is correct, that doesn't necessarily translate into more deaths, but it's violence nonetheless. The difficulty is when you start dealing with specific situations and comparing it with a hypothetical counterpart. In the Waffle House case, based on the 1-second clip from inside the restaurant, calling the cops seems reasonable. If he was in a similar state when the cops showed up, I don't see how the white version of himself gets treated any more gently by that particular cop. Once things got physical, a violent takedown seemed inevitable. I just don't see cops not getting physical with anyone acting like that clip.

That all assumes that the one-second clip is indicative of his actions throughout the confrontation. That also isn't to say that there aren't racially motivated police incidents, just that specific incidents can end up in a gray area.

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33 minutes ago, Message Board User said:

Is choking standard use of force procedure for the Warsaw PD?

To me this is the biggest part of the story.  Doesn't matter if the call to the cops was justified, all we got was another violent, out of control cop.  Just another isolated incident.  

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12 hours ago, Pancho Negro said:

My point is making this thread was because there's a sense that something different has been going on with blacks (and POCs) since November 2016.  I'm not sure if technology has just made us more aware or what, but as a black guy, shit just feels...different.  And then we get evidence of some of this stuff and it just makes you angry.  Could I be next?  Some of these incidents are clearly just white people calling the cops on random black people for nothing.  But I'm 100% honest in saying that there are incidents across the country where blacks, Latinx, and whoever else did something wrong and should be rightfully arrested as so. 

I guess my purpose in starting this thread is to allow those who don't believe stuff is happening or who refuse to believe it (or who say "i've never see that") to see that yes, it's happening.  I think where anger comes into play is those who say these are isolated incidents. 

Very rarely in these incidents (Starbucks, Yale, etc.) do we see cops sticking up for people of color.  Where are more of those stories?  Seems like POC are automatically labled as suspicious.  Rough and harrass first, then ask questions later. 

This is from my perspective.  I'm also a minority...a minority who has his insurance card literally taped to my car visor so a cop won't think I'm reaching for something. (then again i'm light skinned and sophisticated.)

 

I dunno...just wish more people would realize something is going on instead of saying "the same thing would happen if they were white."  If that's true, where are those tapes? 

What you said is completely reasonable, and believe it or not, I agree with you 100% It is shameful that racism exists in today’s society, and personally, it disgusts me. For a long time, white people heard stories that sounded like they were exaggerated or taken out of context. With the advent of social media, and the immediate ability to document incidents, our eyes a little wider open. Yes, these things do in fact occur and every black person in America has their own version to tell. I miss having that feeling in 2008 when Obama took the stage in Chicago and thinking “Finally, a day we can all be proud of”. 10 years later and we seem to be worse off than we were before. Or, perhaps, it was always this bad but we simply lived in ignorance of it before the smartphone became mainstream. The difference between you and I is that I get to move on from my feelings while you have to live it every day wondering if next time it will be you in that video.

The reason I give you so much shit about this is because of the methodology in which it is conveyed. You posted a video and tweet from MLK’s son calling for action. It took me less than 5 minutes to neutralize the theory that some innocent kid was choked out by a white cop simply because he was black. Remember the “main idea” exercises we used to have in school? The “main idea” was made to be: Black teen, just took his sister to prom, had his hands up in a non-aggressive stance and white officer saw a chance to beat up a person of color. That is a slanted description of the incident as evidenced by the snippets of video that we have been provided. This went viral because someone thought it would be a good tool to promote the idea of Black Lives Matter. That kind of propaganda is exactly the same kind of shit political parties use to push their agenda. Now, because of 2 separate incidents that were completely unrelated, Waffle House is deemed a racist organization. Never mind the millions of customers, of all races, that have dined there for 75 years. They are not to be patronized and those that do are either Uncle Toms or supporters of racism. That is utterly ridiculous. Being called a racist is probably the biggest insult that you can hurl at someone. When the label is thrown out there without merit, I have a problem with that. It's claiming false rape on someone's dignity and integrity.

The social media aspect is a two pronged attack. One, it shows us incidents that we otherwise would not have been witness to. But, it also yields an extreme amount of power for those that control the message. Most people aren’t going to fact check the headlines. The edited video is proof positive that the cop was racist and the employees only called them because it was a black guy. The facts are so distorted that you have to wonder if this is being posted to have white people join the crusade or to continue the race baiting tactics of Al Sharpton. There are several videos that can be correctly attributed to racism and/or profiling. When you start adding buffers in there, as most of these public calls for action do, it makes it difficult to empathize. Further, when someone constantly posts stories and videos claiming racism, and that claim cannot be verified, I look at them as an extension of the problem. Especially when they want to argue the statistics and sources of reports that show contradictory evidence to their worldview. While the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, it deteriorates into a circular argument where neither side is willing to concede.

But, I will bow out of the discussion going forward. Surly is about discussing issues, not attempting to change minds. I think that everyone here already knows where I stand.

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10 hours ago, Beau Vine said:

OK, here's one...

There was a bar about 10 blocks uphill from us that had Dollar Night on Mondays -- any drink for $1.

So my best friend and I would walk uphill every Monday with $10 in our pockets, get 7-8 of the strongest drinks we could order, tip the poor bartender $2-3, and then literally stumble downhill back to our apartment.  

I usually stumbled faster than he did (black folks walk so slow!), so I'd get ahead of him and beat him back by a couple of blocks.  

Except for the two times a police car appeared out of the shadows with its lights flashing, officer hopped out, confronted him, and then threw him up against the car and searched him.  And after the second time, I made sure that I stayed with him on the way home.  

 

Were you in grad school prior to Nov 2016?  Poncho seems to think police only started treating minority’s like shit from then...  As a minority who’s been harassed by police (I’ve told one of my stories here) I can tell you that’s a bullshit assessment and it ruins his credibility on the subject. 

For example; those of us that remember the old place and the need for a Bernard forum, Eric Garner died on July, 7, 2014.  BLM was started in 2013 during the previous administration; why was there a need for BLM if prior to Nov 2016 we lived in utopia?  

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8 minutes ago, BurdineBandit said:

Holy shit:

Quote

Oakland mayoral candidate Cat Brooks told KRON-TV there is a big risk of potentially rising conflict when police are brought into an altercation of any kind. "When you engage law enforcement in these kinds of things you are opening the door for things to go very wrong, the potential for arrests like in Philadelphia with those two black men or worse physical assault or death and I don't believe in this day and age that white folks don't know that."

 

Mayor just admitted calling cops makes things worse.

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1 hour ago, SDG said:

Were you in grad school prior to Nov 2016?  Poncho seems to think police only started treating minority’s like shit from then...  As a minority who’s been harassed by police (I’ve told one of my stories here) I can tell you that’s a bullshit assessment and it ruins his credibility on the subject. 

For example; those of us that remember the old place and the need for a Bernard forum, Eric Garner died on July, 7, 2014.  BLM was started in 2013 during the previous administration; why was there a need for BLM if prior to Nov 2016 we lived in utopia?  

No I don't. 

I feel like it's increased since then.  I don't know what that's attributed to.

Crazily enough, all of my police interactions have been civil and cordial. 

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undoubtedly the situation would've been a bit more tense if that cow with stupid sunglasses was more attractive. She pissed me off when she started crying as soon as the cops got there. I've never seen that shit myself but POC swear the white wimmenz play the system just like that whenever appropriate. I'd be furious if I ever saw it, shit I was at that video.

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On 5/10/2018 at 9:01 AM, Spankytoes said:

Because they know what's coming...which completely defeats their position. It's easier to blame arrests in the black neighborhoods on targeted racism than actually admit that nefarious illegal activities constantly take place and perhaps that's what the problem is. That maybe the reputation of the neighborhood itself dictates the feelings of personal safety for citizens and law enforcement based on actual criminal activity.

The purpose of this thread is to say "Here are examples of whites possibly being racist and transitive properties makes ALL transgressions against blacks a racist act!" Some people buy into the bullshit because they are trying to show how not-racist they really are. Some of us are smart.

this is some dumb shit, even for surly

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I actually believe a large segment of the population believes racism is a problem of the past. This thread and these incidents remind us that it still exists, and in more ways that overt I hate black people kind of way. Subconcious racism is hard to fight, especially when an effort isnt made to identify it. If you dont think racism is institutionalized in our society, you need this thread more than you think. 
Well said.
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30 minutes ago, PatrickMcHorn said:
On 5/10/2018 at 10:44 AM, Dahobbs said:
I actually believe a large segment of the population believes racism is a problem of the past. This thread and these incidents remind us that it still exists, and in more ways that overt I hate black people kind of way. Subconcious racism is hard to fight, especially when an effort isnt made to identify it. If you dont think racism is institutionalized in our society, you need this thread more than you think. 

Well said.

I might go a step further, depending on your definition of "our society," and say "humanity."  And it isn't institutionalized, it's native, instinctive, like eating and fucking.  Also, like eating and fucking, it takes some higher brain function applied to tamp it down.

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On 5/10/2018 at 3:40 PM, Pancho Negro said:

 

O.K., question, and I don't want to wade through a million miles of text to find the answer.  WHY did the Waffle House call police to start with?  I'm definitely missing something here. (nothing unusual on my end.)

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