BLACK CHICK A LITTLE ROCKED: WHEN COPS EARN DISTRUST YOU GET WHAT YOU GOT IN ST LOUIS

Friday, August 21, 2015

WHEN COPS EARN DISTRUST YOU GET WHAT YOU GOT IN ST LOUIS

SAINT LOUIS POLICE HAVE EARNED
SO MUCH DISTRUST
THAT THE COMMUNITY THEY SERVE
DOESN'T TRUST THEM
TO DO THE THINGS THEY ACTUALLY WANT DONE

Ordinarily, a lower income, black community is behind the police when they take down a drug house. But the police have such total disregard for the black community that it's probably a toss up between the drug dealers and police as to which gang is worse at this point.

PROTEST OBSERVERS CLAIM POLICE REACTION TOO AGGRESSIVE: 10:35 p.m.
The Rev. Renita Lamkin of St. Charles, who regularly attended protests in Ferguson, went to Page Avenue with several other clergy members Wednesday evening. She accused the police of engaging in an overly aggressive response.

“There has to be a better way, but the better way is not to terrorize an already terrorized community,” she said. “How they deal with the situation is classist and dehumanizing. The people here don't matter as much to them.”

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/fires-set-off-police-confront-crowds-hours-after-st-louis/article_9eae9155-9f8e-5296-b836-45326918fda3.html

Then again, I'd probably put up with a lot over a few days to be rid of drug dealers. But it's a choice I shouldn't have to make as an American. I shouldn't have to make choose who I am more afraid of just because I'm black. I shouldn't have to think about the likelihood of being hurt by police versus being hurt by a drug dealer. But too many people of color are finding themselves having to make that choice daily in the United States

I don't get what's so hard for people who are policeman to understand about the concept of caring about your fellow human beings as you would want to be treated yourselves.

When you maintain a racist belief system and are unconscious about your own racism, you have a fearful over-reaction to people identified as not-like-me. If police, for example, had found a drug house in predominantly white neighborhood --and I promise you, there are some-- tanks and tear gas shouldn't have been seen as necessary or logical, not even if they were sure somebody had a gun or three.

You only escalate to tanks and tear gas when you don't care about the people in the neighboring houses at all. I'm wondering if that tank is the military surplus equipment that President Obama decided to limit police access to the Spring of 2015

And police used so much tear gas in Saint Louis that innocent people were gassed out of their own nearby homes.

We don't know how any of the car fires started, but we do know that tear gas explosions are capable of starting such fires.

According to the twitter essay below, tanks and teargas were taken away, then brought back again. Because maintaining a racist belief system and willfully remaining unconscious about your own racism leads to having a fearful over-reaction to people identified as not-like-me, right?

Most murders of unarmed black people by white and white appearing police officers have been done in the name of being "afraid." Police escalating the situation in Saint Louis is more of the same. When you maintain a racist belief system and are willfully unconscious about your own racism, you tend to have a fearful over-reaction to people identified as not-like-me.

* * * * *
This twitter essay, in the link below, was written by Antonio French.

https://storify.com/mdp99/st-louis-8-19-2015