WHAT THE SMOLLETT HOAX TEACHES US ABOUT RACISM HOMOPHOBIA & HATE IN THE USA: NOTHING

feeling rebloggy
Like I said a few days ago. This is barely about Jussie anymore.There's not one good reason for black folks to ever trust the police's word for anything --especially any words coming from a police department that routinely protects its murderers and accessories to murder  (Rekia Boyd, Laquan McDonald).

When Rekia Boyd's murderer, Dante Servin, got processed through the system to freedom one article I read stated that he was the first murderer with a badge to go through the legal system in 17 years. 

Seventeen years!  As often as Chicago Police shoot people in defacto SERIOUSLY segregated Chicago!
So don't hold your breathe waiting for me to regret giving Jussie the benefit of the doubt. And I'm still kinda waiting for a Hail Mary. Kinda. (The CPD had so many leaks going during this case that, at 10 years of age, I could have lied myself an alibi no matter what I actually did. And Able & Ola, Jussie's reported accomplices to the hoax, are older than that.

You wanna know why I still want there to be a Hail Mary explanation? 

First of all, I don't want to believe any of my people can be as dumb as the Orange Menace in the White House. I mean, Jussie reportedly called Ola and Able (the brothers he reportedly paid to fake the beating) an hour before and after the crime? Really?
At 10 years of age, I could have done a better job of faking a hate crime. Maybe 8 years old. And all of this was supposed to get him a pay raise? How?

This is Agent Evil Orange level thinking.

Maybe I just don't want to believe there can be two high profile nitwits living in this country at the same dang time
 

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FROM:  THE ROOT
Michael Harriott 

We should focus on what Smollett’s hoax teaches us about the racism, homophobia and hate in America:

     Nothing. 

     This was just the case of one nigga doing some dumb shit (allegedly). It doesn’t negate the proven fact that hate crimes are on the rise any more than a false rape report negates the fact that there are rapists who are walking free among us every day.
     And, when a woman, a gay person, or a black person tells me they are a victim of violence and hate, the absolute last person I tend to trust is white people or the police. I believe facts. If the Chicago Police Department told me fire was hot, I’d need to see more evidence.
     None of this means Trump supporters aren’t racist or that straight people aren’t homophobic. Two things can be simultaneously true. It is possible that Jussie Smollett lied about being attacked and gay and non-white people are under attack.
      America has inflicted so much violence on anyone who isn’t a straight white man that if you told me that a team of invisible white men teleported themselves to a black cookout, stole all the seasonings, emptied a box of California raisins into the potato salad, put a crust of breadcrumbs on the macaroni, poured La Croix in the Kool-Aid, and called you the n-word before teleporting themselves to safety, I wouldn’t automatically believe you ...
    But I’d listen

Read More: https://www.theroot.com/the-roots-clapback-mailbag-fairy-tales-for-wypipo-1832822738 

via GIPHY

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MOVING THIS BLOG SOON!
For updates, see facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BCALR/?

INSTA-CURE FOR WHITE FOLKS CALLING THE POLICE ON BLACK FOLKS FOR NOTHING

MAKE IT COST SOMETHING

ALL INSTA-CURES FOR RACIST WHITE FOLKS (MOSTLY BECKY) CALLING THE POLICE INVOLVE MAKING IT COST THEM SOMETHING INSTEAD OF NOTHING.

I was thinking jail time for white supremacy based 911 calls. But this will do for a start with a few very specific hate-crime-like details added here and there (so black folks don't wind up arrested 3x as often by the white boys in blue.)

INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH WHITE ENTITLEMENT IN "BLUE RACISM"

AND IT COULD ONLY HAPPEN IN THE ERA OF CHAD CROW

A video released by a New York Police Department union claims cops are the victims of a special type of prejudice: “blue racism.”

Released Sunday night, the nearly four-minute video from the Sergeants Benevolent Association, says officers face worse treatment than those judged by their race. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nypd-blue-racism_us_599b037ee4b0e8cc855f162a 

When I first read about this I kept reading, waiting to find a punchline. But there wasn't one. I was thinking this is THE ONION. It's satire. But it wasn't. 

Police are CHOOSING a profession 
and putting on a uniform, 
which they can remove at anytime. 
And somehow the white officers 
that made this video thought to themselves 
"it is like racism" ...
when the public criticizes police 
for almost always circling the wagons 
around that small yet deadly 
number  of police officers 
that are murdering and planting 
evidence on citizens 
--especially if those citizens are not white.  

And the police, police unions, and prosecutors that don't prosecute have been somewhere upwards of 90% successful at protecting police officers who murder and essentially claim cowardice as their defense for shooting an unarmed person.

This video shows that black and brown lives that police officers have taken mean less than nothing to the white officer behind this video. (We knew that already, right?)

But now they've announced it and they didn't hear themselves say it.  

And they didn't hear themselves say "We are white supremacists" because they do not understand the definition of white supremacist(s) is a lot simpler than many white people can conceive of.

AGAIN, 

WHITE SUPREMACY IS 

THE BELIEF THAT WHITE PEOPLE 

ARE BETTER AND MORE VALUABLE 

THAN PEOPLE THAT ARE NOT WHITE

Sometimes white supremacy involves the feeling of hate. Sometimes it doesn't

Sometimes white supremacy involves the n-word. Sometimes it doesn't.

Sometimes (or all the time) white supremacy involves the satisfying flush of feeling that comes when on feels powerful based on feeling superior to someone else.

Sometimes numbers tell the story of white supremacy. And it's like these white officers don't know perfectly damn well they shot 258 black people in 2016 and were only 11% short of half of them being unarmed. 

CHAD, BUCKY, AND BIFF

And they think we're too stupid to know that when Chad uses his badge to shoot somebody who is not white because he or she is not white, Bucky (Becky's husband) often follows up by claiming he didn't see anything. Then Biff the prosecutor comes along and winds up being a better defense attorney than the guy the police union hired for the cop murderer

I've been calling the police the leading edge of white supremacy for a while now. But this shocked me.

Verbal violence does not surprise me from white supremacists Physical violence would not surprise me from white supremacists. And, frankly, I and most black folks have been expecting Charlottesville and something far uglier from white supremacists for a long time. In fact, I was sure the second term of President Obama would set a group just like alt-Right all the way off.

But they needed Trump to pour gas on them and tell them it was okay to come out with their white supremacy.

White supremacists who would ordinarily shun Kluxers and Nazis needed somebody to tell them the they don't have to be "politically correct" anymore. They needed somebody to tell them they can say it out loud,

"White people are the real victims here." 

And I'm using "cop" and "white people" interchangeably because I'm thinking the black cop union and the latino cop union are going to part ways with the white cop union again, same as they did when the  (predominantly) white cop union endorsed Trump....if this story gets any traction at all.

This is industrial strength white entitlement. Let there be no doubt. 

Not only did cops get caught planting evidence on people in Baltimore recently, they act like they don't know police are the ones shooting people down for reaching for their driver's licenses then clapping when their "brother" gets off in court.  


August 21 headline

Baltimore State's Attorney announces third body camera video of 'questionable' police conduct

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/21/us/third-baltimore-body-cam/index.html

And they really can't figure out why we don't trust any of them anymore?  Really?  

"Blue Racism" might be dumber, whiter, and more racist than something Trump could have come up with on his own.

You know what? I've been afraid of cops my entire life. I've always known that if something really bad was happening in my house and I had to call them, I'd be praying just as hard for the cops to not abuse me as any robber, rapist, or murderer. Our lives mean nothing to police. And this video proves it.

This isn't just about not knowing what the word "racism" means. 
This is a civilized quiet way of saying the same thing alt-Right was saying during Charlottesville. This video is way of denying that racism exists in police departments or anywhere else.

They are actually demanding that people be more grateful, when they've done damn near nothing to weed out the murderers from their ranks. 

Very few cops are even vocal when one of their cop brothers are caught on video murdering someone. It's so rare that when a cop does stand against the murderer in their department that person is held up as a hero....because its so damn rare.

For people of color, cops are just another gang. 



I get that white officers are going to segregated neighborhoods and ignoring how extreme poverty, and being denied access, and being overcrowded affects people --especially when cities make sure cops are low education on purpose. But, this is total disrespect for people of color when you make a video like this knowing your own group is killing people...and walking away, most of them not even going to court. 

I don't care if there 1,000,000 interactions per minute with cops that are good. When they murder they black people were over-represented by 200% in 2016 and 11% short of half of those black people unarmed.

Black Twitter's response to "Blue Racism" ought to be something that means F U and the horse you rode in on with this self-serving, self-centered, ignorant, empathy-less, evil bullsh**  

DeANDRE HARRIS: THEY ORGANIZED AND TRIED TO KILL US AT CHARLOTTESVILLE

AND
HARRIS SAYS POLICE AT CHARLOTTESVILLE FAILED TO ASSIST HIM WHEN HE WAS ATTACKED

Feeling Rebloggy 

Virginia man says police failed to come to his aid as he was beaten by white supremacists during Saturday’s violent protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, that led to three deaths.

Photos and video of the beating inflicted on 21-year-old DeAndre Harris have gone viral. Police said Tuesday they are investigating the incident, portions of which were captured on video. One person of interest has been identified, but no arrests have been made, city spokeswoman Miriam Dickler said in a text message.

Harris was beaten in a parking garage right next to the city police station.

~Washington Post

Read More: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/man-beaten-at-protest-says-police-were-indifferent-to-attack/2017/08/15/1179031a-8201-11e7-9e7a-20fa8d7a0db6_story.html?utm_term=.85bd5158281c


It's on video. Yet, so far, I haven't heard of anybody being arrested. But there is a rumor that one of these terrorists has been found on social media. (Another inbred looking joker too)
Read More: https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2017/8/14/1689623/-Terrorist-Who-Beat-Deandre-Harris-With-A-Pipe-in-Charlottesville-Found-On-Social-Media

BLACKCHICKROCKED.BLOGSPOT.COM

photo source

NO COPS ALLOWED GYM SIGN

feeling rebloggy 

Chambers, who is described by the news station as a lifelong political activist, said that the sign and policy are a political statement for the multiuse space, which, along with being a gym, serves as a community gathering spot and meeting place for activists in the metro area.

 

He added that the groups who work out at his gym are generally minorities who are uncomfortable with the presence of law-enforcement officer.

“It was really just that the vulgarity in that sign, and that seems to bring it out for people,” Chambers told the news site. That being said, Chambers has removed the sign ... for now, although he intends to put it back up without the curse word.

Read More: 

http://www.theroot.com/ga-gym-owner-unapologetic-after-putting-up-controversi-1797674537?utm_medium=sharefromsite&utm_source=The_Root_facebook

CHINESE UPRISING IN PARIS OVER POLICE SHOOTING

Feeling Rebloggy

ON THE DEATH OF SHAOYO LIU IN  PARIS, FRANCE

“He had scissors because he was scaling the fish, he was preparing dinner,” [Attorney Calvin] Job said. “The police opened the door and the first policeman opened fire without warning. One of his daughters said it happened within two seconds. And she says her father did not touch the police."

Source: http://nextshark.com/shaoyo-liu-shot-in-paris-home-riots-chinese-community-france/ 

The Chinese community in Paris is demanding answers. There have been protests for two days in a row, some of them reportedly growing violent

Violent clashes have broken out in Paris between riot police and protesters angry at the police killing of a Chinese man in his own home. Three police officers were injured and 35 demonstrators arrested, the French authorities said on Tuesday.

Shaoyo Liu, 56, was allegedly shot in front of his children while he was cutting up fish. Police say the officer involved in a raid on the property on Sunday fired in self-defence after Liu wounded an officer with a “bladed weapon”.

Liu’s family says it “totally disputes” this account. His daughter told French journalists her father spoke little French and had been at the door of their home holding a pair of scissors that he had been using to descale fish for the family dinner.

THE GUARDIAN

Read More

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/28/police-and-protesters-clash-in-paris-over-death-of-chinese-man

See More

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39416804

BLACK COPS STAND AGAINST WHITE DOMINATED FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE

Feeling Rebloggy

The endorsement of Donald Trump by the Fraternal Order of Police appears to have driven a wedge between many black cops and their white brothers in blue.

And nowhere is the split more visible than in Philadelphia, where the local FOP chapter has fallen in line and also endorsed the Republican presidential candidate — over the objections of a group that represents some 2,500 African-American officers in the city and which has branded Trump an "outrageous bigot."

"Our Local FOP is saying that our people have to follow the national lead," Rochelle Bilal, head of the Philadelphia Guardian Civic League, told NBC News. "We are saying you don't have to vote for Donald Trump and the national FOP should have stayed out of this election."

READ MORE: 
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/black-cops-odds-fraternal-order-police-over-trump-endorsement-n652071

DOES A TRUMP PRESIDENCY PLUS COPS EQUALS WIDESPREAD WHITE DEATH?

Rich white people know a cop will never touch them. So Trump will support the cops no matter what they do or who they do it to. That's why the biggest police union in the country, in the world to let them tell it, is supporting Trump.

Shocker.

But if Trump is elected it will be a matter of time before these out of control cops move on to middle class white people who think they're safe for now. Some white people going to figure out the difference between rich white people and their own paycheck-to-paycheck-living asses quick, fast, and in a hurry.

In addition to black and brown people, these cops have already become bold enough to start beating and killing homeless and mentally ill white people. That's what happens to bullies when they are left unchecked. They get bolder. And if Donald Trump is elected, they'll get bolder still. 

Every conviction the police don't receive makes all of them bolder --- same as it does rapists.

If Donald Trump is elected, the crap is going to spill over all of us, but it's the low education, lower middle class and poor white people (many of them casually racist) that are going to wind up being the largest demographic dying in wars that Trump's dumb mouth leads the U.S. into.

And Trump will lead us into war. He won't be able to help himself. He's already trying to lead us away from allies. And a greedy bully, unchecked, always wants more. Trump has money. Now he wants power. His followers have imaginary power because of his money and because he's white like they are. Beating up on black and brown people in the United States won't be enough for Trump and company. Trump and his minions are going to want to dominate some other country. And white western Europe is too strong for domination, so...   


If these jackals elect Donald Trump, they deserve what they get.  

MULTIPLE NATIVE AMERICAN TRIBES UNITE TO PROTEST THE DAKOTA ACCESS PIPELINE

It looks and sounds to me like white entitlement to has not changed much over the last few hundred years.

And the tactics used on against Standing Rock Sioux on September 3 2016 look hauntingly familiar

[As All Things Considered reported,  

hundreds of Native Americans from tribes across the country have set up a camp near the construction site in North Dakota. The Army Corps of Engineer approved the oil pipeline in July allowing it to run under the Missouri river close to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's reservation.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/04/492625850/dakota-access-pipeline-protests-in-north-dakota-turn-violent   ]

The Standing Rock Sioux tribe is worried that the pipeline will negatively impact water quality on its reservation and imperil cultural heritage sites, says The Dallas Morning News. The Sioux City Journal said the Standing Rock tribe “is fighting the installation of the pipeline on their reservation bordering North and South Dakota.”

The protests have turned ugly with videos and photos circulating on social media of dogs [and mace] being used against protesters on September 3; protesters said there were multiple injuries and ["that construction crews destroyed American Indian burial and cultural sites on private land,” said The Associated Press."

http://heavy.com/news/2016/09/dakota-access-pipeline-protests-video-photos-dogs-map-dapl-routes-north-oil-mace-standing-rock-sioux-native-american-indian-energy-transfer-kelcy-warren-bakken-lawsuit/

* * * * *

Tell me. Do you feel like putting your hand over your heart and saying the pledge of allegiance or singing the national anthem right about now? No? You're going to feel even less like doing so after you read the article below

Read More:http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/04/492625850/dakota-access-pipeline-protests-in-north-dakota-turn-violent

ONLY BLUE LIVES MATTER TO SEATTLE POLICE UNION?

Feeling Rebloggy

Robart, a George W. Bush appointee, is presiding over a consent decree—a court-ordered settlement—between the Justice Department and Seattle reached in 2012.

That agreement required the city to remedy unconstitutional practices at nearly every level of policing, from illegal stops to unreasonable and deadly use of force. Since then, Seattle’s chief of police Kathleen O’Toole has pushed the police force to adopt innovative and successful trainings on crisis intervention and bias-free policing. But further reforms are necessary to fulfill the consent decree’s requirements—and the police union has tethered its adoption of these reforms to pay raises and benefit increases.

In order to fulfill its legal obligation, Seattle attempted to reach a compromise with the police union this summer, offering a new contract that mixed the requisite reforms with wage hikes. The union overwhelmingly rejected the contract on the grounds that it did not sufficiently reward officers with more money and benefits in exchange for engaging in constitutional policing. According to the Seattle Times, it was this repudiation that pushed Robart to speak out so forcefully. In particular, the union appears resistant to adopt new standards and procedures regarding officer discipline and internal investigations, which Robart insists are vital to any sufficient reform.

~SLATE.COM

Read More of 

Federal Judge Declares “Black Lives Matter” From the Bench

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/08/16/federal_judge_to_seattle_police_union_black_lives_matter.html

WORKING WHILE BLACK: NYC POLICE ARREST MAILMAN

A POST OFFICE WORKER, GLENN GRAYS, IS NEARLY STRUCK BY A VEHICLE. He feels some kinda way about that. He expresses his outrage. It turns out the badly driven car is being driven by plain clothes policemen.

Apparently, the policemen get out of their car while Post Office Work Glenn Grays is delivering a package and generally go about abusing their authority, demanding identification as if they don't know who Grays is or what he's doing despite his
1) being in a postal uniform
2) getting out of a postal vehicle
3) delivering a postal package.

Grays appears to be perceived by the officers as a mouthy slave and then they proceed to treat him like one. They arrested him. But Grays didn't get upset and stayed very still-- which is probably why he's still alive, which is why the verbal threats of physical harm was as far as it went

“It is not against the law to voice outrage after almost being struck by a vehicle,” Borough President Adams told the media, “This could have been another Eric Garner situation if Glenn hadn’t responded as calmly as he did. And if they would do that to Glenn in his uniform, they would do that to any person of color in that neighborhood.”

Adams has demanded a full review of this incident.

Read More: https://photographyisnotacrime.com/2016/03/23/new-york-city-postal-worker-arrested-duty-delivering-packages/ 

When the police officers reportedly left the mail unattended, this should have represented the police officers breaking federal law. I wonder when federal officers are going to pick them and put them in jail? Will they go to their homes and pull them out into the street and put them face down on the pavement in front their wives, children, and neighbors?

Somebody make sure to get video of that in the alternate universe, okay? 

Cell phone cameras. Gotta love em.

Read Even More: 

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn-borough-president-condemns-cops-cuffed-mailman-article-1.2573825

ERIC GARNER'S DEATH BLAMED ON BLACK WOMAN BY NYPD

Kizzy Adonis, a 14-year NYPD veteran, was one of the supervising officers at the scene of Garner’s death during his arrest 18 months ago for selling illegal loose cigarettes.

Adonis told investigators “the perpetrator’s condition did not seem serious and that he did not appear to get worse,” according to an internal report by the NYPD.

But Adonis also said that she “believed she heard the perpetrator state that he was having difficulty breathing.”

http://www.clutchmagonline.com/2016/01/nypd-charged-black-female-sergeant-in-eric-garner-death-investigation-but-not-cop-who-choked-him-to-death/

I don't know how to feel about this.  If they were ever going to charge ANYBODY for Eric Garner's death Daniel Pantaleo should have gone down first.  So yes, this is an example of racism at its finest. 

But I still don't know how to feel about this. 

I could understand her being pressured to write this or that by white superiors while trying to think about how to keep her job to pay rent or kids school clothes etc. I wouldn't like it. But maybe I could try to understand succumbing to that.

But she was standing there?

There's film of Garner's death --and she's not in it. Was she way off to the side somewhere? Could she be so far off to the side that it was almost like she was back at the office while this was happening on the street? I kinda doubt the possibility of this scenario. So I'm confused.

If she WAS in the immediate vicinity, has she seen so many choke holds that this did not affect her? If she was in the immediate vicinity and it did affect her, why don't we hear her screaming at Pantaleo to let Garner go? Why did she write what she wrote in her report? I need a lot more information. Don't you? And why is this the first we're really hearing about Adonis after all this time? Is this NYPD's way of saying "ha-ha" and f-you black community? I kinda think it is. Don't you? And I'd bet a lot of money she's being punished for admitting that she heard Garner saying he was having difficulty breathing. The quotes together seem like she was trying to tell the truth and please white management at the same time. I'm not sure there too many of us of any age who hasn't been caught up in something a lot less serious but similar. 


I wonder if she wrote her statement before or after the video came out? Regardless of what her true level of responsibility for Eric Garner's death is, I want to know who initiated this attack on Kizzy Adonis, when, why, and how come it took this long. Don't you?

OFFICER MOST RESPONSIBLE FOR SANDRA BLAND'S DEATH IS FIRED

A Texas state trooper who arrested Sandra Bland after a contentious traffic stop last summer was fired Wednesday after being charged with perjury for allegedly lying about his confrontation with the black woman who died three days later in jail.
read morehttp://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/grand-jury-indicts-trooper-sandra-bland-traffic-stop-36128737

MISDEMEANOR INDICTMENT IN SANDRA BLAND CASE

It's not enough.

This isn't nearly enough.

Officer Brian Encinia was indicted on a misdemeanor perjury charge said a special prosecutor on January 6 2016.

Encinia said he removed Sandra Bland from her car in order to conduct a safe traffic inspection but a Texas grand jury found that statement to be false. The perjury charge is only a misdemeanor, which means the maximum prison sentence is a one year or there could be a maximum fine of $4,000.

What happened to something like a false arrest, I don't know. I wonder if that was even seriously on the table, special prosecutor or not special prosecutor. More information will come out later, I suppose.


Here's to hoping the indictment alone ensures Encinia can never be an officer in Texas or anywhere else. Maybe the criminal case will lead to Bland's family being able to sue the city broke. 

Let us also hope that this is a baby step toward getting a real indictment on more bad cops nationwide. 

THE SHORT TRAGIC LIFE OF KALIEF BROWDER - links & articles

"In the early hours of Saturday, May 15, 2010, ten days before his seventeenth birthday, Kalief Browder and a friend were returning home from a party in the Belmont section of the Bronx. They walked along Arthur Avenue, the main street of Little Italy, past bakeries and cafés with their metal shutters pulled down for the night. As they passed East 186th Street, Browder saw a police car driving toward them. More squad cars arrived, and soon Browder and his friend found themselves squinting in the glare of a police spotlight. An officer said that a man had just reported that they had robbed him. “I didn’t rob anybody,” Browder replied. “You can check my pockets.” "

by Jennifer Gonnerman

In the back of the squad car, Kalief Browder asked his friend if he had taken something (turned out there was a stolen backpack in question). His friend said that he hadn't taken anything either. Yet in 2010, at the age of 16, it was Browder that was sent to Riker's Island for a crime he didn't commit.
He wouldn't be  released for 3 years. 

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/06/before-the-law

"Browder sat there for three years without a trial. He was repeatedly beaten by guards and inmates while in Rikers. He spent two years in solitary confinement—a euphemism for living under torture. On [a] Saturday in [June of 2015] the effects of that torture were made manifest:

That afternoon, at about 12:15 P.M., [Browder] went into another bedroom, pulled out the air conditioner, and pushed himself out through the hole in the wall, feet first, with a cord wrapped around his neck. His mother was the only other person home at the time. After she heard a loud thumping noise upstairs, she went upstairs to investigate, but couldn’t figure out what had happened. It wasn’t until she went outside to the backyard and looked up that she realized that her youngest child had hanged himself." 

                                      by  Ta-Nehisi Coates 

www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/the-brief-and-tragic-life-of-kalief-browder/395156/




AN INTERVIEW FROM BEFORE KALIEF'S DEATH





ON THE TORTURE OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2015/6/11/kalief_browder_albert_woodfox_and_the

NYC's NEW COMMON SENSE POLICE POLICY

NYC's NEW COMMON SENSE </br>
POLICE POLICY

from www.slate.com

Most of us with more than a tinge of color in our skin had already guessed, but was some people had one question on their mind after the Department of Justice disclosed the fact that Ferguson's police department was targeting black for arrests and fines:

How many other Ferguson's are there?

Well this "week New York City announced plans to reform its approach to summonses, creating a system designed to make it easier for people facing
fines to show up for their court dates and defend themselves.

One of the most important features of the reform package, however—and one that has been discussed less than it deserves to be—is the introduction of a “race box” that will appear on every single ticket that police officers in New York write.

Even more striking: The racial identity of every individual who receives a summons will be aggregated in a central database and made public, so that anyone can download it and analyze it for patterns."

Monitoring the police so we can police the police. Transparency is one of the keys to stop adding to list of the people who died at the hand of white police officers while black and unarmed. I can't figure out whether to say "Hallelujah" or "It's about time"

I think I'll got with "It's about time" and ask "When is the federal government will make this mandatory nationwide?"

Apparently they need to work out the categories. Maybe they should use the census racial categories or the FBI UCR data categories. Another story for another time---like when this becomes a federal requirement.  CLICK HERE TO READ MORE AT SLATE

REPOST: A TALE OF TWO ERICs WHO CAN'T BREATHE

REPOST FROM APRIL 2015

When I heard that Eric Courtney Harris died in Tulsa, Oklahoma while listening to some white cop say,

"F*ck Your Breath"

because Harris dared complain about being shot while lying on the ground (ala Oscar Grant) then complained further about being unable to breathe (ala Eric Garner)  I had a moment, maybe two, where I hoped that Harris was a drug dealer or big time gun runner, directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of dozens of people. 

I have no excuse for thinking such a horrible thing.  I was only thinking about myself, about comforting myself. 

I just wanted there to be a reason, not a good reason, just some kind of reason for that police officer to put his knee on Eric's head and respond "You f*cking ran...Fuck Your Breath"  after he heard another human being, shot and frightened of dying complain  about "losing my breathe"

I just wanted one of the unarmed black people killed over this month to have been killed for a reasonable reason. But instead we get...

"F*ck Your Breath"

What's worse is that the white man that shot Eric wasn't really a police officer. 

Seventy-three year old Robert Bates is a rich man who was only playing cops-and-robbers as a "volunteer reserve deputy." And because of his money, somebody thought it was a good idea to turn him loose during an undercover operation---or just after. It's hard to tell. But it was Bates who accidentally grabbed his gun instead of his taser and shoots Harris.

You can hear apologizes to the white officers for shooting Harris in the video.  It's unbelievable. Watch at your own risk

Now, I really did think about scanning the net to find out who 44 year old Eric Harris really was but it really doesn't change anything about how he should have been treated. Having dealt with racists in some form or fashion all my life, I know you cannot let evil people make you evil too, not in retaliation, not even when they deserve it. You cannot let other people's garbage reduce you as a human being.

And one would think that police officers would have to learn something similar in order to routinely come into contact with and attempt to control the worst that our society has to offer. 

Officer F*ck-Your-Breath" must have skipped class the day they taught being civilized at the police academy because he's an animal in uniform no matter what Eric Harris did or didn't do.

Daniel Pantaleo never, ever said anything like "F*ck Your Breath" but he sure acted it out, didn't he? He just kept on choking Eric Garner with the same callous disregard for the pain, fear, and suffering of another human being as Officer F*ck-Your-Breath.

And I don't know why, but I am damn near certain that Mike Brown was bent over in pain,  curling into a more fetal position than demon charging position, when Darren Wilson gunned him down.

When an animal in uniform can't see a black person as a human being it can't. 

Rich Man Playing At Cops and Robbers
Robert Bates

CLICK HERE FOR MORE ON THIS STORY FROM CNN

"Fuck your breath!" a cop responds. "Shut the fuck up!" "You shouldn’t have fucking ran!" his colleague adds as they hold Harris down. Harris died about an hour later at a nearby hospital.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/04/fck-your-breath-says-cop-to-man-who-was-shot.html

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