#IfTheyGunnedMeDown: Michael Brown
Michael Brown (1996-2014), an American student, was yet another unarmed Black person killed by the police. On Saturday afternoon, August 9th 2014, the police gunned down Brown in broad daylight in Ferguson, Missouri. The police let his body lie there for hours. Days of protest have followed, turning violent Sunday night.
According to eyewitnesses: Brown and his friend Dorian Johnson were walking down the street when a police officer drove by and told them to “get the fuck on the sidewalk.” When they did not, the police officer backed up his car. When he had trouble getting out of his car, he took Brown by the neck, choking him and reached for his gun. The gun went off, the officer was bleeding. Brown and Johnson ran for their lives. The officer got out of his car and shot Brown. Brown turned, fell to his knees with his hands up. The officer then shot him in the face and the chest. Brown fell dead. Brown was unarmed.
According to police: Brown attacked the officer in his car and reached for the officer’s gun. The gun goes off inside the car. Brown runs. The officer gets out and shoots Brown when he was 35 feet (11m) away. Brown was unarmed.
Either way the police had no reason to shoot.
No charge, no arrest. The police will not even make the officer’s name public. They have put him on paid leave.
Investigations: The county police are looking into it, with the FBI looking over their shoulder. Eric Holder’s Justice Department is looking into possible violations of Brown’s civil rights.
Ferguson is a working-class suburb of St Louis. Even though it is 67% Black, the police force is 94% White! The police are twice as likely to stop Blacks than Whites, even though they find contraband on 34% of Whites stopped compared to 22% of Blacks. CNN overheard one officer referring to Blacks as “fucking animals”. One of the services the Ferguson police provide is “Riot Patrol”.
On Sunday night, August 10th, a candlelight vigil was held at the place where Brown died. Thousands showed up:
“No justice, no peace!”,
“Hands up! Don’t shoot!”
“We are Michael Brown.”
Hundreds of police officers showed up in riot gear with shields, rifles and attack dogs.
The vigil was peaceful, people praying and so on. Then, according to one account, the police chief called them “ignorant monkeys” and laughed.
Years and years of built-up anger burst forth: police cars damaged, windows broken, shots fired, bricks thrown, fires set, shops looted. At least two were injured, 32 arrested.
Several accounts say the looters were not from Ferguson.
It seemed like Whites were quick to condemn the looting – but not the (far more serious) police brutality.
The following night, last night, the police kept the media out. They blocked streets, used tear gas and rubber bullets to break up gatherings of Blacks. The police arrested 15.
Brown’s family has hired Benjamin Crump, the same lawyer Trayvon Martin’s family used. They want justice, not violence. It is what Michael would have wanted.
See also:
- Change.org: Petition President Obama for a federal to protect citizens from police brutality
- slave patrols
- The police
- racial profiling
- black people as monkeys
- police brutality: just a few cases I have posted on:
- Eric Garner – less than a month ago, caught on video
- Kimani Gray – also led to rioting
- Alan Blueford – also left like a dog in the street
- Trayvon Martin
Abagond 
Here we are, once again! This won’t stop, there are more murders to come!
LikeLike
I anticipate feet dragging, lying in testimony, reduced charges and slaps on the wrists and paid leave!
Then once everything blows over, the killer that killed Michael Brown, will be back on the streets, looking for his next black victim.
Then we as black people will be angry for about a year, then calm down, until the racist white police, provoke another black teen into arguing with them, so he can some how, justify killing him.
LikeLike
They left that poor young man’s body in the street for several hours. They poor young man was on his knees with his hands in the air, The shot this young man eight times. The protesters were taunted by the thug cops calling them names like “animal” that is a tactic used to heighten the already charged atmosphere. The cop knew by using this tactic this would cause a riot, they just want to shoot and maime black people. I believe as blogger Chauncey Devega said, “They get an erection when they are killing black folks.” They are pigs and thugs.
LikeLike
I wonder will the POTUS address this?
LikeLike
You know what i don’t understand about what people? They always tout the right to bear arms and protect themselves as a American citizen.
Yet, they are twice unlikely to come under any danger or harm from other whites in their own neighborhood and even three times as much to not come under any harm from black people, being blacks and whites don’t live together.
The irony is, if any race of people that need to bear arms, it is black people from white people! White cops and white citizens!
Black militancy doesn’t sound very far fetched, these days!
I can see black people, needing to arm ourselves, ( legit and illegally ) because you know how white people control, which black person can get a gun permit! This is by design and not a mistake!
We need to arm ourselves, to protect ourselves from the police! They are not our protectors, they are our oppressors!
They are not in our community to serve and protect us but to harass and arrest us!
LikeLike
Just left his body lying there….Like in those photos of lynched black people just left hanging there, for hours. For days. Why? To get the message across?
LikeLike
Sickening, we are back to the same place, the same excuses, the same pain.
Arming young black men will not help I don’t think, it would give the police even more of an excuse to shoot.
I think the only solution is HUGE rallies and mass protests, silent and peaceful, if possible, all communities united, because the racists need to see that not all non-blacks condone these murders, they need to be made to feel they are a minority (at least I hope they are, but I do not live in the States). It would be good if these protests also took place abroad, to shame these white biggots and show them that the world is looking and judging them. In my experience, these people live in a deluded bubble where these actions seem excusable, although regretful.
LikeLike
“You were born into a society which spelled out, with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being.” James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time; relevant from 1963-2014).
Great post. EMM
LikeLike
There ya go, i wanted to try to write something about this but i jus dont have it together like that right now
LikeLike
@milesaway44105 Thank you for quoting James Baldwin.
LikeLike
@milesaway44105: Poignant and biting quote from brother James Baldwin.
LikeLike
Im curious how did you find out more details about the alleged altercation that started it all, grabbing him around the neck etc i have been combing msm sources for almost 3 days now
LikeLike
@ v8driver
Democracy Now had the most complete eyewitness accounts that I know of:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szETxUNjRAg)
The LA Times is also good: their reporters talk to actual Black people and take what they say seriously, unlike the New York Times.
LikeLike
Oh ok abagond thank you me and my friends are very serious about this and similar incidents.
LikeLike
Abagond I’ve been reading your blog for a few years now and just feel the need to thank you for the great work you do. Knowing that you have a full time job and family to look after while you put up such insightful and important information makes what you do even more admirable. I’ve come across a few other sites that deal with the issue of race but none seem to be as potent, honest and on point as yours.
Living as a black man in the UK things are not as rough (we still get our shootings of unarmed black men by white police though) as they are in the US but one thing I’ve come to accept and I believe all blacks should too is that white people will never accept us as fully fledged human beings and equals. They will never value our lives like they do those of fellow whites and think about their own children when they see the terrible things that happen to black children. As you your self has said in several posts, even the most liberal of whites fall foul of white supremacy ideology that is so deeply engrained in their minds and society at large.
It’s 2014 and the most powerful man in the world is at least half black. Black people have intellectually achieved things on par with the smartest of whites yet it’s still not enough to convince them of the equality of all men. Blacks need to stop this MLK Kumbaya dream and accept the truth. The sooner we do that, the sooner we can take control of our own destinies and rise again. Keep up the good work brother.
LikeLike
And me and my highr order takeaways the writing is on the wall so to speak
LikeLike
As long as black folk engage in behavior that keeps them at the bottom of the social hierarchy, then things like this will persist. It’s not rocket science. Low functioning/dysfunctional cultures will be exploited by higher functioning cultures.
Right in front of black people is the model of the Jews. They came to America, openly discriminated against and largely despised, but within a few generations, they have come to dominate the major institutions of the society. Instead of (always) begging and crying, why not focus on producing a superior culture that can protect its interests and surpass those who hate them?
LikeLike
@miss mary b
http://www.kmov.com/special-coverage-001/President-Obama-releases-statement-on-death-of-Michael-Brown-270966801.html
@inthisjounal what?
LikeLike
I’ve read some media articles regarding Michael Brown’s death, and it’s hardly surprising the pictures posted are with him throwing up a simple hand gesture making it seem he’s a thug. I am reminded Trayvon Martin was pictured in a similar manner. Why not post a lovely picture of Michael Brown who had just graduated from high school with a promising future ahead of him? No, that would be too much. You have to make him look like a criminal responsible for his own death. 😡
Sadly, we will never know the difference he would’ve made in this world. I also read an eyewitness account who said Michael Brown was 35 feet away from the police when he was shot down. So how is it possible to assault a cop from that distance when he’s unarmed, huh? Man, this whole thing reeks of doodoo. This should not have happened, but it does….over and over again. *sigh* My prayers and thoughts go out to the Brown family.
LikeLike
Annef1,
“Arming young black men will not help I don’t think, it would give the police even more of an excuse to shoot.”
Agreed. More guns just means more dead black people.
This won’t end until the police are held accountable.
LikeLike
@v8driver: Thanks for the link, I figured that’s what he would say. it kind of sounds like empty rhetoric to me, but i guess there is not much he can do. Even being the POTUS.
LikeLike
“Ferguson is a working-class suburb of St Louis. Even though it is 67% Black, the police force is 94% White!” How can that be in a ‘democracy’? Shouldn’t that fact be the main issue rather than another protest? Who is responsible for this? What happened to calls for ‘community control’ and ’empowerment’? Why do majority black communities continue to be misrepresented by ‘leaders’ such as Ray Nagin and other miscreants like him? Why have blacks tolerated such treatment? I don’t even see anyone challenging what’s happening, Detroit is being dismantled, New Orleans was dismantled and reconstituted as a social experiment laboratory for the poor and a playground for the rich. Eight years after Katrina that city could claim 100,000 fewer citizens and 500 more restaurants!
LikeLike
Ferguson is 67% black but the mayor and police commissioner are white. The police force is 94% white.
That’s the first thing that should be fixed. These people don’t even have control over their own city.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on revealingartisticthoughts and commented:
R.I.P Michael Brown
LikeLike
About 90 percent of murder victims in St Louis are black, and we know the killers are not whites.
St. Louis Murder Rate on Pace With Last Year; Blacks Disproportionately Impacted
By Chad Garrison Fri., Nov. 4 2011 at 10:26 AM
After trending slightly higher for much of 2011, the St. Louis murder rate last week did something it hasn’t done all year: pull into an exact tie with the number of people killed in 2010.
Through October 27, St. Louis police categorized 103 deaths this year as homicides. The number was the exact same on October 27, 2010. That means St. Louis is on pace to have 144 murders in 2011 — the same as in 2010. Roughly an equal number of victims (143) were killed in 2009 following a particularly blood 2008 when 167 people died at the hands of another in St. Louis.
So, of the homicides this year, who’s getting killed? The police department provides some startling statistics for that.
Of the 103 murders this year, 90 of the victims have been African-American. Ten have been white. Other races fill in the balance. Another way of looking at those numbers: If you’re black in St. Louis, you’re nine times more likely this year to be murdered than if you’re white.*
The most likely person to die on the streets of St. Louis is a black male between the ages of 25-29. Men in this category have accounted for 15 murders this year (or 14 percent of all homicides). Take black men between the ages of 20 and 40 out of the equation entirely, and the murder rate in St. Louis so far this year would plummet by nearly half — to just 53 homicides.
Perhaps even more disturbing than the statistics involving race, is that St. Louis police have so far cleared (brought a case to the Circuit Attorney’s Office) just 43 of this year’s murder. And, not surprisingly perhaps, 89 of the murders this year (86 percent) involved a gun.
Here’s the spreadsheet of the homicides though October 27 as provided by the St. Louis police department. Crunch your own numbers.
*Blacks account for 49 percent of the city population, according to the latest Census, with whites comprising 43 percent. Yet, even with a slightly larger population, the murder rate for blacks is tremendously disproportional to whites.
LikeLike
@annef1
Shame only works on those who are capable of feeling it.
In the meantime, I’ve been trying to collect my thoughts on Mike Brown’s death and the events in Ferguson. It’s hard to do that when you’re feeling nothing but blind anger, interspersed with depression over the same things happening again and again and again and again…
These people have made it crystal-clear that black Americans don’t deserve to exist. Henceforth, it’s open season on the men – and if they can’t use our women, it’s open season on them, too.
So, what do you do when you’re confronted with that?
What do you do?
LikeLike
In 2013 there was 120 murders in St. Louis. Regarding the victims, 105 were black.
St. Louis homicides up in 2013, but overall crime dipped 5.4 percent, police say
January 14, 2014 6:45 am • By Joel Currier jcurrier@post-dispatch.com
ST. LOUIS • Homicides in St. Louis were up in 2013 while overall crime fell last year for the seventh straight year, St. Louis police say.
Though criminologists warn that homicides don’t tell the whole story of crime in a city, it’s a statistic that catapults the need to reduce violent crime to the top of Police Chief Sam Dotson’s 2014 priority list.
“I think the community needs to know that we see the same things that they do,” Dotson said Monday. “That violence is a problem. That crime is a challenge for us. But crime is a regional issue. Criminals don’t recognize city-county borders. We have to approach crime as a regional problem.”
That means drawing on contributions from prosecutors and judges, probation and parole officers and cooperation from citizens to help prevent crime, Dotson said.
City police released data Monday saying major crimes fell 5.4 percent overall last year compared with 2012. Crime statistics from St. Louis County police were not available Monday.
The decline in St. Louis in 2013 marks the seventh time since 2006 that overall crime went down, police say. That year, crime rose in nearly every category except murder. The 8,605 violent crimes recorded that year represented the highest total since 1998.
Fast-forward to 2013, and most crimes are trending downward. Homicides, with 120 in 2013, was one of two categories that went up. There were 113 homicides in 2011 and 2012. Dotson said last year’s total was still below the five-year average of 136 for the years 2008-12.
He said most killings were related to drugs or drug money. Ninety-eight of last year’s homicide victims were men. At least 105 were African-American.
LikeLike
@sb32199
The old “black-on-black” violence trick, bolstered with carefully curated FBI stats.
Take your stats and shove them up your narrow behind, you gomer.
LikeLike
^ I wish Abagond’s blog had a “Like” button such as the one on Facebook. Your recent comment post deserves one.
LikeLike
@Mack Lyons: “Slow claps”
LikeLike
Working within the constraints of Abagond’s moderation policies requires a bit more…finesse…when dealing with individuals such as sb32199 and inthisjournal. Oh no, I haven’t forgotten about you, either:
@inthisjournal
What we have here is a prevailing train of thought that’s allowed ordinary white Americans to consider their black counterparts as “less than human.” Which makes it much easier to assume that the black people peacefully protesting against the summary execution of Mike Brown and other men and women of color like him are the same people as those who are/were looting and burning stores, partly out of frustration and partly due to opportunism.
It’s also the same mindset that allows someone to blithely ignore or rationalize police behavior until it personally affects them. Same as it ever was.
LikeLike
..”Same as it ever was” (Talking Heads/”Once In a Lifetime”)-classic and honest quote from a great commenter (amongst the other right-on points you wrote about), Mack!!! R.I.P. Michael Brown (and countless others who were denied equality, respect, and justice)!!!
LikeLike
Idk chi talking about 13 min wage rahm emmanuel please
LikeLike
OFF TOPIC: black-on-black crime
On a thread about police brutality it is a naked deflection. It is a Broken Record argument better discussed here:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2013/07/29/the-black-on-black-crime-argument/
LikeLike
@ inthisjournal
This assumes there is no such thing as racism or that it is pretty much dead in the US. Maybe you should read the post and get a clue.
LikeLike
Many of those White police officers do not even live in Ferguson! So if the town goes to hell, it just means more overtime.
LikeLike
The protesters are demanding more Blacks on the police force:
As I think we all know, Black police officers can be brutal too, but it seems to be less common.
LikeLike
@ Lex Shine
Thanks.
LikeLike
Where is white anger over this ? As long as white people dont rise up and show anger at this murder , and other murders , that are starting to become cronic in the news , then this is the real crux of the problem….Im seeing this on CNN in a hotel getting ready to come to the usa , in a hotel room , I dont get CNN, and last year at the time Im coming in , you have the Trayvon Martin case , and inbetween, a black guy seeking medical help after an accident ,getting shot by police…you got the lady shot by the white guy , seeking help…etc..disgusting
You see Wolf Blitzer interviewing the parents , and , high profile super star jornalist , Blitzer , blunders in and asks twice if their son was exited to go to college ….I mean , white people dont know how to talk to black people, the cultural rift is so great , they cant even really talk person to person with black Americans…with real sensitivity and understanding
And , you see these parents , and the parents of Martin, and they look like real people, not charctors in a movie , or celebrities, they look like real respectable people , attractive , the father of Michael had a drum kit in the background in the interview, I noted…these are real Americans , submitted to some very real racism and the horrible consequences of racism
I do blame white people for Americas racial devide, black Americans can only react in the best way each individual thinks works for them…I may argue on here against anti interracial relationship attitudes, but , bottom line , what ever it takes to get through the day in racist America , certainly is understood from me
LikeLike
The entire police force needs to change from the top to the bottom. We need actual reform instead of trying to unsuccessfully sue these guys whenever something happens. Conservatives rail against the teachers’ union but what about the police union? The entire methodology has to change. Even outside of homicide police do all types of things that would get any other type of employee fired. The police unions have to go and every officer should be forced to wear a “go cam” for a start.
LikeLike
One thing I don’t like with Micheal Brown killing is the way everyone always have to emphasis that Brown was going to college.
I would not have cared if Brown looked and acted like Lil Wayne. I would felt the same anger. You could be Carlton Banks, don’t make a difference to the Police.
LikeLike
@ TheHipHopRecords
I agree. That is why I left that out.
LikeLike
@ TheHipHopRecords @ sb32199
I deleted your comments. The black-on-black crime argument had already been declared off-topic.
LikeLike
Re: Black police officers
Not a magic pill. Not a remedy to the institutional problems, either. Apart from racism, Police are a culture too, they have a way about them, they have a modus operandi. I posted a video (months ago,it’s deleted now) on the Police thread where a black cop (NY cop) talked about how he still did and was still going to, go after blacks and latinos to fufill his quota. He explained that if he doesn’t do it, the long term effect is that he’ll just be out of his job. He spoke on camera with his voice disguised and his visage shadowed out.
LikeLike
HHR said:
One thing I don’t like with Micheal Brown killing is the way everyone always have to emphasis that Brown was going to college.
Hmm, that’s amusing and off putting all at the same time. I haven’t followed any media coverage of this murder. Now, I want to have a look.
LikeLike
Not-So-Fun Fact of the Day:
Google hits for “looting”: 4,310,000
Google hits for “knock-out games”: 3,220,000
Google hits for “police brutality”: 1,680,000
LikeLike
Who’s next? I am beyond sick and tired of this nonsense. We already know that the collective white mindset doesn’t think we are worthy of service & protection. I wish there could be a united front in the Black community to bring about positive change. Seems like history continues to repeat itself. What can we do differently that hasn’t been done before? “Makes me wanna holler”
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57Ykv1D0qEE) #RIPMichaelBrown
LikeLike
@ HipHop
Due to where I am, I don’t get to see the coverage following this Michael Brown’s death.
Who is saying this — the mainstream news media?
LikeLike
abagond,
Acts of looting are observable, as are instances of the knock-out game.
Police brutality is an accusation. There may well have been 1.68 million accusations of brutality made over a specified period of time, but that’s not equivalent to confirmed cases of police over-reaction.
LikeLike
@ HipHop
Sometimes — maybe ALL the time — media representation can show black people murdered like this as though they were “deserving” because of alleged “waywardness” or criminiality. From what i remember of the Trayvon Martin case IMAGES & perceptions — so much was made of the way he dressed!
His hand gestures!
That he wore a grill over his teeth!
that he may have had cannibis in his bloodstream, and so on.
All bloody irrelevant to his slaying.
And then — the photos that were chosen showed more bias than a 1000s and 1000s of words could. Just showing innocence as badness.
Or youthfulness as evil-in-the-making.
The images chosen to show THE VICTIM, if black, so often doesn’t show them as:
-studious
-gentle
-familiy-oriented
-civic-minded.
Even though those traits might have been normal and representative of the dead individual in question…
This misrepresented does not even permit black male children or teenagers, to be children or teenagers. Rather, only MEN. And DANGEROUS.
Whatever they seem to do, whether it is wearing certain clothes or jewelry, on THEM, it is a sure sign of their inherent “deviancy”, their criminal proclivity.
Being bookish and studying is not attached to that image, so although I also do not like that this emphaisis about Michael Brown “going to college”, could there also be a reason for this emphasis?
LikeLike
@ abagond,
Could you tell me how is Michael Brown’s death and Michael Brown himself, being portrayed?
LikeLike
Are we still waiting for the perfect poster boy?
LikeLike
@ Jefe
There will never be a perfect poster boy for racist policing. That follows almost by definition:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2012/05/18/the-perfect-victim/
LikeLike
@ Bulanik
At the top of the post are two pictures of Michael Brown. I think you can guess which one the media used. It led to a Twitter meme #IfTheyGunnedMeDown:
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23IfTheyGunnedMeDown&src=typd
You can get a better idea of it on Tumblr:
http://iftheygunnedmedown.tumblr.com/
Because the White American press demonizes Black victims of White violence, the temptation is to push back and point out stuff like, “He was about to start college,” as Brown’s mother did. But that buys into the idea that Blacks have conditional worth. Not only is that sadly desperate, it does not even work. To Whites ALL Blacks are n!ggers.
LikeLike
@ Abagond
Right, it was his grieving mother who mentioned the college thing.
I would have interpreted that remark differently — mother’s say those kinds of things, especially if their child is just starting out on their adult path.
But, since I know the context in which Michael lived and died, interpretating it as “just something a mother would say” would be totally ahistorical.
Thank you for the links. The 2nd one (the tumblr poster) nails it.
LikeLike
Lifelearner: Whose next?
I would guess suburban White people will probably be next because everything that’s happening to White people right now, got tested out on inner city Black people first. Once the police get tired of using Black men as target practice or they’ve finally figured out that they can abuse all Americans with impunity, they will then proceed to take their show to the suburbs, where even now, plenty of clueless White folk are sitting around on their butts passing judgment.
In about ten years there will be militarized police marching through their neighborhoods and shooting at their children.
they don’t ever seem to learn that everything that happens to s, eventually finds its way to a neighborhood near them. People in power don’t care about Black people? My argument is that people in power care about NO ONE. So ya’ll White people go ahead and keep apologizing and making excuses. It just makes it easier for the PTB to oppress you later.
LikeLike
Yes, I understand that is the theory behind “perfect victim”, and as police typically target young to middle age black males to hassle and threaten, and then attack, those targets will be easier to thuggify to the white media and voters.
But is the answer to wait for the perfect poster boy? That could take centuries.
It will almost be impossible to find a perfect poster boy – maybe an Ivy League PhD. student or Westinghouse Science winner high school student either part of, or child of West African brain drain immigrants.
I have heard and seen police brutality since childhood, even experiencing directly once myself. I don’t see any improvement since the 1970s. Why does nothing change after each of these investigations and murderers get off scot free?
I really think some civil disobedience on a scale even exceeding the 50s-60s is needed (I am talking about something in the scale of tens of millions). Why does one have to wait for the perfect victim?
LikeLike
Michael Brown is a symptom, a sad of the reality of Black life in Western society. So lets let kid ourselves into thinking if justice can be seen to done his murderer and killer; if the Ferguson police force issued an apology and initiated an honest recruitment drive to enroll and train more a representative police force. Or even if the FBI declared a wider investigation into the increasing deaths of targeted Black citizens…etc…- Would that mean Black people could go back and get on with living their ordinary but decent lives?
Yes…As some have already commented such killings of innocent Black folks, regrettably, will continue to dominate the news headlines. And Black people will continue to get upset and angry feeling like abused victims..
But the plain and simple fact is. This society and its manifested attitude and treatment of Black people is ingrained and a fully functional part of the foundational culture it is built on.
Now unless and until we (I mean each individual themselves) begin to stop participating in its normal functioning activities of daily life. And we begin to articulate the basis on which we are agreeable to participate which would include genuine commitments/actions towards freedom. justice and equality.
Can we ever realistically expect anything to change?
LikeLike
Jefe: Yes, they are targeting young black males who have been conveniently and carefully represented in movie after movie, song after rap song, tv show after tv show as “thugs” for the last 30 years.
After all the horrific stereotypes that have been created as an excuse to treat Black men like manure, (and you know what they are) the media seems to have found the one that really works.
Even if there was such a thing as a “perfect victim” the world would never know it bc the media would be quick to blanket the stereotype right over his cooling body.
This is what they do now. Instead of making even the slightest effort to address the problems they cause in society, White men just do whatever the hell they please to anyone and everyone and then paint all their victims as “less than”. That’s so much easier than solving the problem of their toxic masculinity.
LikeLike
Well add another young black man to the list in Los Angeles, 25 year old mentally ill Ezell Ford shoot in the back. May he rest in peace.
LikeLike
Multiple photos strongly suggest Michael Brown was in a street gang. Some will claim such photos are a smear and say the media should be using photos of him as a child singing in his church choir instead. But the photos aren’t doctored. That’s really him flashing gang signs and wearing gang colors.
He and a member of his crew were walking down the middle of the street. When an officer asked them to move to the sidewalk they argued. When the officer opened his car door they attacked him and fought for his gun which discharged.
Details of the actual shooting are sketchy. Given racism and anti-police prejudice among blacks, I’m willing to consider eyewitness accounts but not accept them as absolute without corroborating evidence. We’ll know more after the investigation is complete.
Meanwhile some blacks are engaging in community wide racism and criminality including looting, vandalism and violent assaults. While other racist blacks take advantage of the time delay required to investigate to racebait and spread rumors. You’ll notice that when it comes to the media, blacks being interviewed will act outraged and put on a show for the cameras. However, if you see the video of looting and vandalism then blacks are smiling and laughing like it’s a big party.
LikeLike
In the words of Marvin Gaye in his “Inner City Blues” “Makes me wanna holla, throw up both my hands.”
LikeLike
@big momma, liar, liar, pants on fire….but you knew that when you started typing your nonsense. Maybe you should move on to Stormfront where you will find other people who are as at odds with reality as you are.
LikeLike
Hey. You listening? Good. Ready for an alternate take on Michael Brown’s murder? A take that comes out of political and global truth rather than emotional angry, bitter shock and disgust (nothing wrong with bitter shock and disgust, I feel it too about yet another young Black boy’s death, me being Black and all, but I never lean on emotion when it comes time to think, and think for survival’s sake).
Ready?
Here is one alternate take for your A_ _. This is just another urban street execution of a young Black man/child, and in America a young Black man/child is not a man, not a child, not human, but a terrorizing threat–a death sentence for all cops everywhere, waiting to happen, sauntering insolently down the street blocking traffic, raping little Anglo girls, snarling, pissing up against buildings, and most crucial of all LURKING AND PLANNING TO KILL COPS,
I’m talking in the eyes of the police, now, yawl, not the eyes of an average human being, like all of you are who are hurt and outraged, all you Blacks who are bitter and angry, all you Anglos who are saying, ‘hey, wait a minute, this is not supposed to still be happening in MY lifetime, my middle school civics textbooks told me so’– not in YOUR eyes, but in the eyes of the po-po’s, in the eyes of J Nab, of One-Time, of The Shark, Justice in a Can, John Law, Johnny Take Down, The Smooth Cruise, The Cops, the Concrete Justice Squad, The Shakedowns, Sudden Deathers, The Cocaine Thieves, the Occupation Army (just a few of the affectionate names for the police we use here in Detroit).
In THEIR eyes a young Black man is a criminal, animal, oversexed, hulking, threatening, beast with superhuman strength who will yank the squad car door clean off and pull the officer of the Law out with one hand like Mighty Joe, and bite that officer’s penis off and then hurl him 100 yards through the air like a rag into a tree then saunter over to stamp the officer’s head flat as a pumpkin.
You see, the police are the PENULTIMATE consumers of myths about Blackness, yawl! Multiply every stereotype, every dehumanizing racist, sexist, White supremacist fantasy YOU might have by a HUNDRED TIMES and you have Anglo, over-equipped, under-educated, American urban police mentality.
Here’s the evidence:
1. Why did the cop get so bent out of shape by these kids walking in the street? (Why do YOU and ME get bent out of shape? You know you do. If you live in urban centers or in Black exurbs like Ferguson, in the inner cities of Chicago South, Detroit East, Philly South, NYC Bronx, LA West, or where ever American city streets have become broken, dilapidated, overgrown, with few or no sidewalks left as passable, young Black people WALK IN THE STREET, because America is now a 3rd World nation, a debtor nation, a nation whose pitiful neglected infrastructure is collapsing, and you cannot walk on many of the sidewalks anymore–poor and working class Black neighborhoods don’t even HAVE sidewalks anymore, not from street to street. I see it every day in Detroit, and it pisses me off to have people walking where I need to be driving. Well, It doesn’t just piss off the police, it frightens them, it triggers them, it upsets their instincts, it makes them crazy, jumpy, AFRAID because they dread seeing beasts who might shoot them as they drive by, walking in the street).
2. Why did this cop attack not the smaller, dread-locked, more intelligent, more articulate, in fact uncannily articulate friend of Michael Brown, who was the one talking back to him in the first place (and now ironically is the one speaking and talking and witnessing and talking and TALKING in the media right now in his very well turned southern accent, his very competent vocabulary, his very sympathetic calm, respectful objectivity about his friend’s murder, hammering those coffin nails into this cop’s fate with each well turned phrase)? Better he had attacked THAT young man, not Michael. Why did he kill Michael? Because he FEARED Michael, even if he didn’t even know he feared him. He might even have been planning, when he pushed his door open so violently and hit the boys, to arrest the one who was TALKING, but when that door hit Michael, the cop’s innate, American, Anglo, racist CONDITIONING took over and he drew his gun, making Michael, who was no fool, RUN. That’s what I would have done. Michael looked into that cop’s eyes and saw what was what, as I have seen myself, often in the past. Luckily for me, the cops never drew on me–they simply beat me senseless with clubs. I have a permanent fissure in my skull thanks to police beatings, and I count myself lucky it was clubs, not guns. Yeah, Ivy League degree possessing, university professor scholarship boy me. Me done got me ass kicked too. America is a tough town if you’re Black.
3. Why did he shoot at an UNARMED Black boy unnecessarily? See #1 Above.
4. National context: All yawl who sniffed at and poo-poo’d the struggle and the eventual violent repression of the “OCCUPY”” movement’s young people in NY City last year, saying, ‘oh, they are just White kids, they aren’t serious, and they’re just acting up’ and ‘they ain’t even got a PLAN’, should be re-thinking your attitude. Those kids (some of whom were Black by the way) were mostly college graduates who had swallowed the American ‘dream’ of a college education only to come out of college on average 75 thousand dollars in debt with no prospects and no hope for jobs, let alone careers. Whatever you thought of them, whatever their race and their PARENTS’ class, they were Americans trying to take action using the American constitutional rights you and I need right now it we are ever going to stop this escalating pattern of the murder of young boys. Those OCCUPY twenty year-olds in America have NOTHING in terms of wealth or power, only their parents do; they exercised their right under the constitution to protest, assemble for redress of grievances, and to boycott and demonstrate–you know: like the Civil Rights Movement. They were attacked, viciously beaten, their heads bashed in by squads of unnaturally beefy cops dressed in futuristic riot war gear meant not to put down riots (the OCCUPY kids were peaceful, not rioters) but to START riots. Finally, after a long sequence of totally un-american, outrageously stupefying TELEVISED attacks specifically on the WOMEN in the crowds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ05rWx1pig (look it up on YouTube, they ripped young ANGLO women’s clothing off, manhandled them, pressed their faces to the concrete, put knees in their backs, hog tied them, sprayed chemicals in their faces, and dragged them across concrete ripping skin off their bodies–several have been crippled by that treatment and lawsuits are still working their way through NY courts) they finally swept them off the NY streets like garbage and essentially shut down the whole movement. Now THINK: if they violated their OWN CHILDREN’S human rights that way, what do you think could happen to those Black Ferguson Missouri demonstrators getting rubber bullets shot at them these past two days (some of which even struck reporters)? What makes you think you still have the right to wage a ‘Civil Rights’ movement? WE NO LONGER HAVE THE RIGHT TO FREEDOM OF ASSEMBLY IN THIS COUNTRY BECAUSE OF THE PATRIOT ACT. NAACP is still a very effective LEGAL organization that can fight for us in the courts but as far as marching and singing, NAACP is dreaming and smoking soap bubbles in their dreams in that particular regard. ACLU has long ago figured that out: they have been loading up on law graduates the past three years, becoming one of the leading left wing employers of recent law grads. A little history lesson: the urban rebellions in the inner cities of the late 60’s and early 70’s won you and me RIGHTS and CHANGES in public policy, even in law. Why? Martin King had already suffered withering defeats in the inner cities because the urban ruling class did not care if he marched and sang–southern repression is different from urban segregation and a new tactic needed to be created, which is why he tucked his tail and retreated back to the south and the Memphis garbage strikes, AS HE ADMITTED (read his freaking speeches and writings from the last year of his life and give that “I HAVE A DREAM” malarkey a break). He woke up. He realized that CAPITALISM and AMERICAN IMPERIALISM and American violence all over the world, was the problem, not segregation, which is merely a symptom. Check out a REAL MLK speech, the Riverside Church speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC1Ru2p8OfU
5. International context: remember Tienanmen Square in China? Remember the huge pro-democracy demonstrations carried out by young, college aged Chinese people in their capital city? Remember how the Chinese ruling class reacted, despite the fact that 35-50 percent of those crowds were night-to-night composed of their own, literal, CHILDREN (reports varied on the percentages, but Dude: it is a FACT that some percentage of those kids were children of the straight up, pig foot vinegar funk dunked RULING ELITES, and they freaking rolled tanks over those kids to break their protests the frack up):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJBnHMpHGRY You feel me? America, China, Gaza (pictures of Black men and their children on their knees in the street with cops pointing guns at them look JUST LIKE Gaza, don’t they??), Ferguson, NY City, it’s all the same thing–you and me are in SOME TROUBLE. The only way at this point this won’t engulf us all, all Americans, as KING HIMSELF SAID, is if we unite, put MILLIONS of people in the street, and take back our democracy. Do you even KNOW what was on King’s mind his last year on Earth? He planned to run for the senate and to organize POOR PEOPLES’ marches, movements, and advocacy first in America and then across the globe (can anybody say “IWW”?–Hello!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scCwxjcYILg
Sorry my Black people, but too many of our instincts are obsolete. You still think racism is about race, about YOU. You Anglos who want to sympathize, are making the same mistake–it’s not about your Black friends and your children’s Black friends at college, or even your Black brother in law, its about YOU. Check out those plentiful videos of young Whites getting the mess beat out of them and getting shot at and gassed last year.
I won’t even bother saying to progressive Anglos ‘what they do to me now they will be doing to you later’ because they are already doing it, and if you haven’t already figured that out by now then just go back to your righteous outrage and post more ‘poor Black people’ comments on ABAGOND, I’m not talking to you. My alternate take is this: the ONLY way Ferguson will get any response out of the authorities, as MLK himself realized and as the history, not famtasy but history of the 60’s and 70’s clearly document, is not with ‘civil rights’ marches that end with them being shot at, corralled by cop armies like pigs as we’ve seen on TV and on NEWSONE (http://newsone.com/3043932/kmovs-brittany-noble-reports-from-the-frontlines-in-ferguson-mo-video/), and having dogs surround them, but by taking a cue from the looters (and from American history) and recognizing that NO URBAN UPRISING from 1968 to the present has ever succeeded in changing public policy without presenting a direct threat to BUSINESS, to corporate PROFITS, and to capitalism as usual.
The looters are damaging their own communities and making no real difference in future public policy other than to expose themselves to injury and death at the hands of the sophisticated weaponry the police all have now thanks to the Patriot Act. But those who criticize the looters for not being ‘peaceful’ and ‘non violent’ are fools. That is because the ruling class in Feguson already understand what I am saying and have not been protecting the homes and businesses of Blacks or the working class, but have been cutting off access roads to the LOCAL MALLS and surrounding CORPORATE BUILDINGS. The looters, as always, are being contained, so guess what? Those looters must be at least on the right track.
The lesson the looters demonstrate as in the 60’s, is that WE all have to JOIN TOGETHER as a population to put MILLIONS into the streets to STOP BUSINESS in this country, to TURN AROUND THE CONGRESS, to ELECT an actual president (I don’t know, maybe Elizabeth Warren, or how about Cornel West??) who CAN over rule the Republican legislature because we voted republicans OUT of the legislature, and because we ended CAPITALISM as USUAL.
That’s gonna be a big step and a big decision for Black people, because We love capitalism, and useless consumption, status, gold lame, gilt, houses, cars, all as signs of ‘suck-sess’ and even of ‘freedom’. We have swallowed the lie that money can save us, but we need, now more than ever, to wake up and look at whose blood is on that money we think can save us–it’s our own blood as well as the blood of Asians, Africans, Arabs, Latin Americans, and the peasants of the Earth. Increasingly, it is the blood of every fellow American citizen.
THAT’s what Michael Brown’s death means, and the deaths of all the other Michael Browns and OCCUPYers to come, really means.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“I do blame white people for Americas racial devide, black Americans can only react in the best way each individual thinks works for them…I may argue on here against anti interracial relationship attitudes, but , bottom line , what ever it takes to get through the day in racist America , certainly is understood from me”
BR, your last paragraph, I agree. The power to end this lies in the hands of those WITH the power. I say lay blame where it rightly belongs and pray that those who look the other way will get theirs in due time.
LikeLike
I’ve been recently following this incident on social media, and what blows me away is how many people say things in the comments sections of stories on the killing like “that’s what happens when you go for a police officers gun, it’s not rocket science people”. How in the hell do people believe these wobbly, nonsensical justifications of police actions? Just like in the Trayvon Martin case there is no discussion of what motives he could possibly have had for such insane actions. Like, really? A cop tells you to get out of the middle of the road and you just randomly decide to leap into his car and go after his gun? That sloppy, kindergartener level fabrication doesn’t hold up to even the most basic logical scrutiny. I have a theory that people who can seriously believe that crap for even a second[those however, who aren’t so paranoid and hateful that they think blacks are wild animals that may attack unprovoked at any time]are aggressively in denial, not only about American policing and society in general, but about their own racism that doesn’t allow them to feel genuine empathy for blacks. They are looking for any explanation for what happened, and their own callous indifference to the victim and others like him, other than the truth that racism and injustice are not dead, in either American society, and their own heart.
LikeLike
“…*or their own heart.”
LikeLike
@Ann:
Not to be at all personal–since I am only responding to you as being representative of a very large number of (mostly young) Africans kidnapped into America, as we all have been. I would rather respond to Joaquin, whose comments I much more agree with, but Ann, I think you represent a large group of people.
Having said that, let me be blunt, because one problem we African Americans suffer is that slave culture (see Sterling Stuckey’s book, “Slave Culture”) deprived and still is depriving us of full political, economic, and historical knowledge of ourselves and our valid Black culture and traditions and depriving us of necessary consciousness of where we are–what America is and means–, and specifically denying us the self confidence to demand of courage of ourselves and of each other. We are soft, confused, mistakenly convinced that we are powerless, afraid, easily seduced by capitalist ideas of human isolation, individualism, materialism, being competitive with each other rather than cooperative, misled by the ideology of ‘self interest’ and lacking in long term rational thinking skills. We are sometimes, as scions of capitalist dogma, even a bit reactionary because of that. In that sense we certainly ironically show just how filial our relationship to American Anglos is, particularly Anglo, conservative, Christian southerners, who used to own us, of course.
Alas, the time to hide behind all that is passing away swiftly, as capitalism collapses around us exposing all our contradictions as Americans addicted to consumption, particularly exposing the nihilism (as Cornel West calls it) of the young. See “Race Matters” by Cornel West, or check out this video of Cornel’s, “The Niggerization of America”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEScONfKqFk
The murder of Michael Brown shows that the young, despite their cell phones and excessive fondness for expensive clothing and togs, are the primary target now of racism, sexism, homophobia (African Americans are now between 12% and 14% gay and lesbian, depending on which statistics you believe, and since many stay in the closet out of fear, it’s probably more than that) and class and job and educational and financial exploitation and injustice. That is exactly why Black youth need to pay close attention to the underlying issues raised by the OCCUPY movement and need to learn history, specifically the history of the labor movements. Cornel West has delivered well over 100 public lectures on that issue in the past five years alone!
Ann, much of what your comment shows is a (widespread, not just you) collection of various untruths, myths, and intellectual prejudices–for instance, it is obviously not true that “black Americans can only react in the best way each individual thinks works for them,” because I AM a Black American, and hundreds of thousands of Black Americans before me DID and I DO ACT (not react) in a far more positive, rational, and effective way than just that which ‘works for me’. I won’t even go into the LONG list of African American artists (Lady Day), intellectuals (Cornel West), politicians (Adam Clayton Powell) educators (Melvin B. Tolson), and hell, even athletes (Ed ‘Too Tall’ Jones, Ali, and Tommie Smith and John Carlos) who would balk at your assumption. I believe that mindset that you are reflecting is what young people mean (intentionally or not) by ‘ratched’ (a corruption of the word, ‘wretched’). As Black poet, Jayne Cortez once commented, wretchedness is the result of hopelessness, resentment (I’m not saying YOU feel that way, Ann, but that the ideology you are reflecting stands for those things) and an inability to transcend beyond these petty issues (for instance, it is sooooo revealing that you stuck the issue of ‘interracial relationships'(??) into your comment.
Where did that come from? It’s often one of the emotionally overwrought ‘issues’ young American Blacks argue and carp over instead of staying focused on doing real analysis for the purpose of understanding where we stand in America and the fact that like it or not, we no longer stand alone. The boat is very crowded now, with Arabs, Latinos, newly arrived Africans, Anglos, Asians, and for Ptah’s sake, an entire globe of victims of capitalism and imperialism. We had better learn to stop resenting so-called ‘white people’ whom are going to need at allies if any of us, Black or Anglo, or sane or crazy, are going to make it out of America alive.
READ. Try, ‘The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual” by Harold Cruise and then try Angela Davis’ “Women, Race, and Class.” Angela would sharply disagree with most of what you have initially said, though I’m not assuming you don’t have more and greater comments to make. I simply suggest you (and all of us) do a better job of working off of our actual history and the texts that document our actual history, because without understanding, sharing, and even embracing that history of struggle, insight, activism, creativity, innovation, and LOVE, we cannot move forward. All the expensive cars will soon run out of gas, because the Earth’s fossil fuels are almost depleted. Wouldn’t it behoove us then, to learn the engineering and geology of petro chemical fuels and to learn the science of electromagnetic and hydro electric engineering, and to encourage our children to learn? The future is the only place anyone has to go.The failures of our present offer little solace.
Let Michael Brown’s death, only the latest, by a sign to us to make all that is wrong around us change, following the well preserved and numerous road maps left to us by those who came before us.
LikeLike
The media always tries to make it seem like the victim deserved it. Oh look at how they were dressed, look at their hand gestures, look at their record, listen to how they talk. The media is always victim blaming, they hardly ever put the blame on the attacker, but they will hurry up and condemn the way victims react to being attacked. media: oh u were raped well what were u wearing, what did u drink, did u say no. media: oh an unarmed person was killed, what was he wearing, how was he in school, were his hands visible,does he have a record? media: the attacker feared for his life, their name is not being released for fear of retaliation, blah blah blah, we will respect their privacy. media: *goes and puts camera In face of grieving family members then asks dumb questions so how do u feel? what is it like to lose ur son or daughter?
The media when a white guy shoots up people * gasp what happened, how did a sweet loving boy turn into a cold blooded killer. interviews neighbors, he was quiet and he was nice, he kept to himself but he never hurt anybody. media: we suspect mental illness or bullying to blame, oh no it was both, either way people are left with one question, WHY? media * goes and gets an “expert” expert: I am an expert, I believe it is a case of video games, movies, violence, influencing this young man *ignores white privilege, narcissism, hatred*
media when a black person is killed media: the police urge people to not jump to conclusions, but what happened? media: well we spoke to some witnesses: *interviews witness and puts their name out* * tries to discount what witness said then interviews police or law enforcement expert. media: the police said they saw a gun, or he reached for their gun, or he threw a gun, they don’t know their story changes all the time, but anyway what we do know is a gun was involved. what happened next is anyone’s guess *ignores what witnesses just said they saw* but shots were fired and the victim lay dead. it is a tragedy for all involved.
LikeLike
and can we talk about peace
1. The absence of war or other hostilities.
2. An agreement or a treaty to end hostilities.
3. Freedom from quarrels and disagreement; harmonious relations.
4. Public security and order
5. Inner contentment; serenity: peace of mind.
Used as a greeting or farewell, and as a request for silence.
Idioms:
at peace
1. In a state of tranquility; serene:
2. Free from strife
keep/hold (one’s) peace
To be silent.
keep the peace
To maintain or observe law and order
now which ones do u think u have the right to. answer: peace of mind ,to be silent ,and to observe law and order, any other peace is not allowed. For there to be peace there cannot be anymore being killed. for there to be peace there has to be justice. for there to be justice there has to be equality. it is stupid to think that people will be peaceful while they are still being killed, no people believe in peace once there is no more killing. a war is over once each soldier is home, and once there is a ceasefire for both sides.
Peace it seems is one sided, they want black folks to be peaceful while we are being warred upon. They bring out these police hoping people react so they can massacre everyone they see and it will be justified in their eyes as well as others when the media spins it. look at all the race riots that have happened, black folks were killed by the hundreds while only a few whites were. an eye for an eye does not help because if we take an eye best believe they will take an eye, a hand, and a foot. we are screwed until we come together not just in protest but in everything.
They know black folks will gather together when these things happen so they bring all these police out, and try to provoke the crowd. It may be tear gas and rubber bullets today but what happens when they bring out the big guns, people are going to be easily killed being all together like that. and all it takes is just one person to get upset and they will take out as many as possible. Yall see how they shoot themselves or each other on accident all they have to do is have an “accident” and start shooting up people and lying that someone shot their fellow officer.
LikeLike
When it comes to police shootings, how many suspects are shot each year? How many suspects are shot to death? How many are black?
The answers to these questions are available, though getting them would require some time and effort. Nevertheless, it would be worth acknowledging how infrequently suspects are shot to death by police.
The Brown case will probably lead to criminal charges against the cop. The eyewitness accounts paint a picture of police over-reaction that’s hard to refute.
LikeLike
I dunno where to start. I honestly don’t know, because I’m emotionally drained from this. I’m angry of the fact that another unarmed black person was taken down by police. I’m vexed of the police’s racist sentiment towards blacks in that town. I’m infuriated of certain people trying to make excuses for the police. And I’m tired of knowing that we have to come up with some “good” reason why we are not only allowed to exist, but exist as human beings.
The other evening, I was challenged by a someone, a white man, when I said that I did not fault those who were rioting and looting. They said that black people in that area shouldn’t have gone on a rampage and, instead, should’ve thought of more peaceful and intelligent ways to get justice.
I was taken aback instantly at the total lack of reality in his comments. He was subtly blaming the people for what’s going on! When black people get abused, we’re expected to stay quiet. If we raise up, we’re faulted for being outspoken and are told to think of “better” ways to deal with our anger. There’s nothing that scares white people more, than angry black people, especially those angry at them.
There was another person who was using the old intraracial black crime excuse as we’ve seen here, but under a different, more familiar name. The sad part is that this was a black woman. SMH.
The question I pose to people like that is this, how can you expect black people to respect the law when the law doesn’t respect them?
LikeLike
@ sb32199
How callous this attitude is; it is my Uncle’s attitude, too. This is the argument I offered my Uncle: you don’t understand statistics if you argue how ‘infrequently’ people are shot by the police and how even ‘less frequently’ Blacks are shot by the police.
The total number of bullets German police used nationwide in Germany in all of 2011 was 85 shots, according to Der Spiegel, a major German news source.
Averaging out the number fired by American police in 2011, 85 shots comes to about the average number of bullets fired by American police into ONE SUSPECT.
Of those 85 bullets used in 2011 by German police, 49 were warnings shots, 36 were aimed at criminal suspects, 15 people were injured, while 6 were killed–again this is data from Der Spiegel.
While police in the United States must file a report each time they use their firearm on duty, Die Spiegel found in investigating, that no statistics are readily available to the public in America on the amount of ammunition discharged annually. Still, the US population is almost four times that of Germany’s, while its level of police violence is geometrically higher.
Amadou Diallo, was shot 41 times by four plain-clothed officers outside his apartment. And Diallo’s case is statistically average for Blacks in America.
Los Angeles Police killed a 19-year-old man after pumping 90 shots at and into him.,
New York police fired at a suspect 84 times.
Well, you know the statistics, I guess. You need to not just assert them but THINK about them.
So let’s address your comments’ lack of understanding of statistics itself. Let’s go back to school.
If you have a room full of apples, let’s say 4,000 apples, and 7% of the apples (280 apples, right?) are stepped on by the security guard you hired to watch over them and protect them, because he turns out to be a crazed apple smasher, it is statistically true that 7% (the percentage of apples stepped on) is a low percentage. There are a lot of apples in the room, if it is a small room. Mind you, the smashed and mutilated apples themselves probably wouldn’t agree with you, but you are making a statistically correct assertion that the apple deaths are infrequent.
But statistics is not only meant to calculate meaningless numbers such as sheer percentages, statistics is a SCIENCE that can be subtly, profoundly informative along various axes of MEANING and of EXPECTATION if you get beyond simple mindedness.
Let’s imagine that this ‘small’ percentage of apples being stepped on has a particular distribution–that the majority of the apples being stepped on happen to be, disproportionately, those in the corners of the room. In the center of the room very few apples are being stepped on. You don’t just leave it at that, you ask WHY.
If you care about your apples, don’t you want NONE of them stepped on by this crazed apple hater who happens to wear a uniform and happens to work for you? If you never know when or if he is going to step on your apples but you DO know the DISTRIBUTION pattern then you can project where his crimes will happen and you can PROTECT your apples from him–you know from the distribution pattern that he has a prejudice; he steps on the apples in the corners, not in the center of the room.
You may discover in fact that the apples in the center of the room are Princess apples, while each of the apples in the corners are Red Delicious apples. You are entirely justified in making an inference that the crazed apple smasher guard has a prejudice against Red Delicious apples.
Or perhaps your analysis will postulate that it is the misfortune, the at risk situation of the Red Delicious that you have segregated them in the corners of the room. This guard of yours every now and then does step on a Princesses, but only, it appears, because some of them are adjacent to the corners and get caught up in his rampages.
It could be that it is the corners themselves that set off the psychotic behavior of your apple smasher security guard. Perhaps he drinks too much, beats his wife, and takes bribes or even deals in drugs whenever he patrols those corners. So perhaps you are as much to blame as he is because you have allowed the corners of the room to so degenerate, have segregated your Delicious apples in them, and have hired a thug instead of a professionally sound guard to go into those dilapidated corners. Plus, you don’t pay him enough.
Ultimately, the question falls back on you: DO YOU CARE ABOUT ALL YOUR APPLES as your apple constitution claims (“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all apples are created equal”)? Or do you say, ‘well, a few lost Delicious apples are of no concern to me”?
Either way, your guard is a threat. I would argue myself that he is a threat to ALL your apples, because he’s not going to stop with those corners, he’s going to sooner or later start stepping on higher and higher percentages of your Princesses, Dude. He has problems. He’s not doing his job. Get rid of him.
You might even want to start thinking about no longer creating apple ghettos in the corners of your room, Dude. I assume you are a male. Women usually are better at math than we are.
LikeLike
@ Abagond
Abagond, Brothawolf did a very thoughtful post on the Michael Brown situation, and he raised what I think is a very important question. I want to appeal to you to make it a string all on it’s own. He asks, “how can you expect black people to respect the law when the law doesn’t respect them?”
There should be some discussion of this question, I think. Hosannas to Brothawolf.
LikeLike
http://www.reddit.com/live/tdrph3y49ftn/
LikeLike
rayfeild, dont attack Ann for what I said, and you are getting into one long winded rebuttal where you are reading way more into what was implied
and you bring in your own hang up about capitalism as though that is the real problem…i guess you dont get that this plays out in communist countries (Cuba) to afro descendents as much as any capitalistic country
in Brazil, with a workers party in power, a red flag party, exactly these incidents are cronic, they happen with a lot of frequency, including the protests…(and i seperate these protests from the commie protests in Brazil where they went and broke and disrupted real peoples lives with their violence for nothing.)..for the same reasons that have more to do with the legacy of slavery , cultural racism and a society that has excluded Afro descendants , than anything that has to do with capitalism…racist societies just use capitalism and their racism gets reflected , racists use communism or socialism and their racism gets reflected
sao paulo police shoot and kill more people than all the police forces in America..and most of the victoms are black and brown
and, you can dent this capitalistic system the same way people dented the music business by getting something for free…people have all the power sitting at their computor to organise huge manipulations of capitalistic predatory corporations…
saying i understand how each individual has to react , does not implicate that they arnt in daily action and acting on racism everyday, but if a racist incident happens to you, its a reaction that comes next from the individual incident…you dont intellectualise real time incidents, you react to them, even if you are mentaly prepared, you still have to react to an incident that happens to you , and a feeling…its seperate in how people are acting to combat racism
the same thing just happened in LA to a black youth , shot by LA police
LikeLike
Yet another.
Black people are under permanent global siege made even more effective by the fact that we are born into it and the global system, at this time, disguises it with disingenuous rthetoric. The police brutality in America and the so-called black-on-black crime used to dismiss it are all symptoms of a larger problem that exists in a wider context.
If a group of people who HATE YOU, as proven by consistent BEHAVIOR, controls access to everything needed for life what would you expect the CONSEQUENCES to be? Would there be intimidation and enforcement tactics to maintain the status quo? Would there be scarcity? Would there be infighting because of scarcity?
Sometimes I don’t think people are able to see the larger conflagration while they try to put out the embers that continually come wafting in on the convective breeze. We have so many things on our plates on a day-to-day basis that it seems pointless to extend our thought processes beyond those clear and present concerns. But again, it’s like finding your house flooded and diligently mopping up while neglecting to find the open tap from which the water is flowing. You’ll be mopping forever!
I doubt many of us operate like that though. The first thing we’d do is wade carefully through the water in search of the source of the flood. We’d then turn it off or stop it up, mitigate damages by evacuating any movable valuables and only then start the clean up process. It would be folly to try to live comfortably forever in a house that is in a constant state of inundation and in which our young children might be in danger if we don’t watch them constantly.
Yet this is the model I think we’ve settled on collectively to deal with white supremacist racism and the siege that works through it. We are not tackling the issue of how to come out from under the burden just how to exist in spite of it. We can’t neglect the latter as long as the situation persists but the former is important too. There is the idea that each of us can live comfortably if white people just stop being racist when the comfort that is enjoyed by whites (for some more psychic than material) actually comes at the expense of people of color globally. The water you’re mopping up is spent blood. In other words, the domestic oppression in America is supported by a global system of explotation and resource extraction that has continued in various guises for centuries. POC in America are the outsiders that are inside and we are treated as such. I think we have always known this on some level though we may vary in our thoughts about what needs to be done about it.
I think we have to think about more than how to live comfortably under siege despite all the demands of life. We need the consciousness of a need to carve out safe spaces for ourselves little by little. The irony is that within (such as in America) is the best place to do that since the kind of racism which now dominates, thanks in part to the efforts of previous generations, will not allow for overt warfare against black enterprise here (while other countries are fair game in the name of nationalism and imperialism). I think we need our eyes to be open to what is happening and not fall prey to “crab mentality” that can easily be induced in these situations. I think we need to accept that we need to fight. I am not talking necessarily about violence here. I mean it in the more general sense of “any contest or struggle”.
I am an optimist. My vision is of the end … not of perpetual mourning of slaughtered sons. That is not destiny. I see us reflecting on the experience of disunity, evil and suffering. Interesting. Never again.
RIP
LikeLike
It needs to stop. Police could not be shooting white teenagers so frequently and getting away with it. Maybe if for each of these incidents there was someone to go Dorner on the police force, targeting their family, they would think twice. This is how racism goads others into violence and then they’re called savages.
LikeLike
“Either way, your guard is a threat. I would argue myself that he is a threat to ALL your apples, because he’s not going to stop with those corners, he’s going to sooner or later start stepping on higher and higher percentages of your Princesses, Dude. He has problems. He’s not doing his job. Get rid of him.”
________________________
The controllers want this apple smasher on the job doing what he’s doing because he ENFORCES the current charade or system. Non apple smashers can’t and won’t keep apples in line, smashed, cowering in the corners, afraid..apple nurturers are worthless and useless to the controllers in this current system.
If we want to make the smashers job next to impossible to do (there must be civil unrest, anarchy, riots, looting, mass disobedience) and the controllers WILL HAVE TO CHANGE THEIR METHODOLOGY in order to maintain their control of the masses. Harm and take away their finance, economics and business interests! Then they will do whatever they have to do to maintain and save their profits and MONEY!
They (the controllers) will never get rid of apple smashers, unless these smashers are costing them too much. We are where we are today because apple smashing VIOLENCE is the vehicle that the controllers ride to their destination of maintenance, refinement, control and power. MONEY.
LikeLike
@ B. R.
Read what I WROTE. It was not about Ann, it was an analysis, which I clearly pointed out. As for you none of it was about you.
LikeLike
@ B.R.
I have an ANALYSIS of capitalism not a “Hangup.” If you disagree with it and are competent enough present your counter argument. Your post sounds like a typical mole “attacking” as you claim I was. You attack your own fantasy about me being a “communist” even though those who can read witnessed me dismissing both capitalism fakery and communism fakery. I have said if you read what I wrote that we have never actually seen either system in reality. If you want to know what I am, I am an agnostic. I don’t believe in ANY political system that doesn’t serve human need. Go on pigeonholing me if that’s all you have to contribute. Once again I have no more to say to you.
LikeLike
@Just Me
You damn right. Say more!
LikeLike
Not sure if it’s been mentioned, but Anonymous leaked a name for the cop who shot Michael Brown.
http://hackread.com/anonymous-releases-photo-of-police-officer/
I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the info. Just sharing FYI.
LikeLike
@A. Waller
You’ve already said it:
“The looters are damaging their own communities and making no real difference in future public policy other than to expose themselves to injury and death at the hands of the sophisticated weaponry the police all have now thanks to the Patriot Act. But those who criticize the looters for not being ‘peaceful’ and ‘non violent’ are fools. That is because the ruling class in Feguson already understand what I am saying and have not been protecting the homes and businesses of Blacks or the working class, but have been cutting off access roads to the LOCAL MALLS and surrounding CORPORATE BUILDINGS. The looters, as always, are being contained, so guess what? Those looters must be at least on the right track.
The lesson the looters demonstrate as in the 60’s, is that WE all have to JOIN TOGETHER as a population to put MILLIONS into the streets to STOP BUSINESS in this country…
That’s gonna be a big step and a big decision for Black people, because We love capitalism, and useless consumption, status, gold lame, gilt, houses, cars, all as signs of ‘suck-sess’ and even of ‘freedom’. We have swallowed the lie that money can save us, but we need, now more than ever, to wake up and look at whose blood is on that money we think can save us–it’s our own blood…”
A. Waller,
You hit that nail dead center! Nothing’s going to change unless WE change it. It’s foolishness to expect THEM (and their white enablers) to wake up one day with a paradigm shift and a changed heart that’s willing to empathize with and stop all the wrongs happening against black people. It just ain’t gonna happen.
I think we’ve forgotten our history regarding how we got some things accomplished. It wasn’t by appealing to the absent consciences of most white people or singing kumbaya. It’s time to stop being confused about what Amerikkka thinks of us and get very real about what we’re dealing with here.
LikeLike
@ Just Me:
“I think we’ve forgotten our history regarding how we got some things accomplished.”…All I can say is Amen.
LikeLike
Rayfield A Waller, you never answered my question. You put a lot of effort into creating some sort of emotional assessment of the situation.
Moreover, you’re not a stickler for facts. You wrote:
Amadou Diallo, was shot 41 times by four plain-clothed officers outside his apartment. And Diallo’s case is statistically average for Blacks in America.
Wrong. The facts are: The four cops who shot at Diallo fired 41 shots. However, he was hit by 19 of them. These numbers were published ad nauseam during the media coverage of the case.
If you’re unable to correctly report this well-known number, it’s a good bet many more of your data points are incorrect.
Anyway, policing is always somewhat flawed. Few police departments oppose doing a better job. If the police were truly militaristic, their behavior would be truly lethal virtually every time they arrested a suspect.
So it’s worth getting down to the nuts and bolts of why and when police decide to shoot, as well as how often their shots are fatal. How often do police truly misinterpret the situation? And how often are cops killed by people they’re attempting to arrest.
It’s a two-way street. There have been some brutal murders of cops who were killed when they tried to arrest some uncooperative suspects.
Let’s deal with the facts instead of your emotional overload.
LikeLike
@Mary
I wonder, will the POTUS address this:
LikeLike
You know, I think I have an idea how incidents like this play out. As many other young Black and Latino men know, the police are anything but friendly in their everyday interactions with us. Many love to use their state sanctioned powers to humiliate, harass, and intimidate us on a regular basis with verbal threats and insults, and measures like tearing our car apart searching for drugs, or pat downs if we are on foot, especially in numbers larger than one. Now in most of these periodic instances, we just burn with outrage internally, and wonder for the millionth time why they have to treat us like this. But sometimes, I think, one of us can’t take it anymore, and becomes defiant, refusing to let the cop piss on our dignity, and wave his power over us in our face. Now this defiance rarely(if ever) takes the form of direct violence against the cop. More often, I suspect it is something like refusing to play his power games, and maybe telling him exactly what an asshole he is, and questioning his right to dehumanize us. Now for the most part, the cop will be pretty angry about this, and perhaps rough you up, call you some names in the process, and maybe throw you in a holding cell for 24 hours on trumped up charges that will be later dropped(or not). Something to show your black or brown ass he in fact can f#%k with you if he feels like it. But sometimes, one of these youths that has reached their limit of just taking it quietly have the misfortune of defying one of the number of extremely narcissistic, power obsessed, super racists that it seems are especially attracted to the profession, and I’m certain exist on every major police force(especially ones that operate in areas with a high minority population). Now when one of these guys power and control is challenged, they nothing less than completely lose their sh*t. These are the ones who will ferociously beat and maim you to the point of being sent to the ICU(while claiming your limp, bloody body resisted arrest by bumping his leg while he was bouncing your head off the pavement), the ones who will shoot you a dozen times, and leave you in the street in a pool of your own blood for hours. Because of the twin forces of racism(which devalues non-white life), and the “them and us” attitude which makes cops more interested in protecting each other than citizens, the police unions and departments will tenaciously protect cold-blooded murderers, and have absolutely no interest in finding out the truth, or giving justice to the victims family and community. It’s the latter of these two forces, and the well founded fear of reprisals from their superiors and co-workers, that keeps good cops who might otherwise have a problem with what goes on, silent, and toeing the line. Until the police have someone independent of and outside their influence overseeing their actions, more transparency to the public, and a change in the policies that spawn this violent, insular culture of American policing, the killings of young black and brown men and women will continue as they long have. Unless we do something this time we haven’t before, Michael Brown will not be the last of us gunned down with impunity. I can promise you that.
LikeLike
Sb32199…..because using 19 shots to kill a man is better than using 41…..semantics. Also, most people who kill police are arrested and tried. Perhaps all the protestors want is the same process to be followed when a policeman kills a civilian. But then as the question goes ” who will guard the guards?”
LikeLike
@Anne
Great points. “Perhaps all the protesters want is the same process to be followed when a policeman kills a civilian.” That’s one of the bottom lines.
LikeLike
And another thing I really do to get about some people who defend the police, is that they say stuff like “yeah, well he punched the cop in the face, what do you expect” or some other utterly crazy, rambling explanation of how shooting an unarmed person from 35 feet away was somehow okay. Aside from the fact that the cops story is dubious if not outright preposterous: so what if he had punched the cop? The appropriate response would have been to physically subdue him, arrest him, and charge him with assaulting a police officer. I repeat, FLYING INTO A RAGE AND SPRAYING BULLETS AT SOMEONE WHO HAS SURRENDERED AND IS 35 FEET AWAY IS STILL NOT AN APPROPRIATE RESPONSE, WHETHER THEY PUNCHED YOU OR NOT.
And to the people talking about “but what about all the poor cops brutally murdered while trying to arrest an uncooperative suspect”. Well why don’t you bring forward some cases of an unarmed teen killing a cop from 35 feet away while kneeling with his hands behind his head.
LikeLike
Pumpkin:
“‘m already planing my vacation from the US for a while. I’m planning it, i’m completely serious. stuff like this continues to happen, it’s a national problem that needs to be addressed. Obama just spoke on the incident, I wonder if he’ll do anything to address this national issue of police brutality and indiscriminate shooting against African-Americans and other POC.”
Things are looking very bleak for black men in America! I think i had betta get my black ass outta doge! @ : o O ) >
LikeLike
The racism aspect is a given. The disproportionate number of deaths of POC at the hands of police, in circumstances that do not justify the use of lethal force, demonstrates that.
Looking beyond that, the old caution that power corrupts is, IMO, as much truism as cliche. Every example of a role that enjoys the power of force or coercion over others, from police officers and soldiers through politicians and monarchs is riddled with corruption, abuse of power and the disregard of ethics as is convenient.
So long as there is a hierarchical social structure with agents employed to protect its interests the abuse of power over ordinary people will continue to increase – to the particular disadvantage of POC.
LikeLike
@ Joaquin
Excellent comment (except for the lack of paragraphs 😉 ). The heart of the issue is that the police are not being held accountable for their crimes. They are getting away with murder, literally.
LikeLike
The police have released the name of the killer cop: Darren Wilson, a six-year veteran of the force with no prior disciplinary record.
http://www.vox.com/2014/8/15/6005675/ferguson-police-department-releases-name-of-officer-who-shot-michael
It can be done!
LikeLike
Rayfield , I absolutly didnt call you a communist …never, I dont see communism in every social program , in fact , I want social programs in our capatalistic system and hate predatory capitalism and their trite phrases like greed is good …they have truly sold us out and dont really care about America, or even more , the American people…I do perceive an anti capitalism slant from you…Im fine with capitalism , but , I want capitalism with a concience
And , I am not attacking you , I freely have said I admire much of what you have said, and , I am presenting on here my honest assesement of the world based on my real experiances . And , I think looking at capitalism or communism as the root cause, is not going in the fight direction , and , actualy , takes attention away from the real origins and reasons for these horrible shootings against black Americans , who werent doing anything ilegal, by authorities and racist white citizens…I really beleive white racism has to be dealt with on its own terms , with each situation examined for its reality…spreading it out , will dilute the real issues involved….just my opinion
For example , the reports are starting to focus on the military arms of the police, trying to make that an issue , when , its not the arms , its the mentality behind the people with the guns…and , it doesnt matter if the police have m15 rifles , or , attack dogs we saw in the picture Abagond brings in sometimes…
My gosh , the dynamic is exactly the same , the mentality is very much the same, and , I grew up in the sixties , and saw authorities respond with the same mentality, even worse…its not the arms , its a giant cultural fault line , where cultural ignorance, arrogance and cultural racism is the root cause…and , the media is reluctant to really go into that, how and why the authorities , and , many white people have a stunted view of black Americans and who they are , and the tremendous value that black Ameticans have contributed to this country
They dont seem to acknowledge fundimental humanity in black Americans, and the dignity and respect black communities deserve…and white racism created poor black communities…but they never took responsibility for that
LikeLike
So far, no one has supplied numbers for the questions I asked.
How many suspects do police shoot? How many are black? How many are killed? Same questions for white suspects.
Also. Bonus question. How often to black cops fire their weapons?
Something tells me the numbers of black suspects shot and killed are low.
Meanwhile, the shootings of black suspects often happen during shoot-outs. Bullets are flying in both directions. Once the suspect starts firing his weapon, he’s pretty likely to wind up in the morgue.
LikeLike
Is there really no room to discuss the disproportionate violence in black communities when talking about the relationship between black people and the police.
I feel that it is a major piece of the puzzle. And dismissing it as derailing hinders finding solutions. These are overlapping issues. They can’t be easily separated from one another.
Why are the police so heavily involved in black neighborhoods? I think everyone(black ppl), ultimately, wants to minimize the police presence in black neighborhoods. We all know this isn’t an isolated event so why do we need to discuss it as such.
I know there are commenters who bring up violence in black communities to deflect attention away from police brutality but banning discussion on the topic is just as dishonest in my opinion.
Ok maybe not just as dishonest because I know Abagond has a righteous intent. But I feel that prohibiting the discussion to thwart racist trolls also limits honest and useful viewpoints.
So back to my original question:
Is there really no place for talking about violence in black neighborhoods when discussing black people’s interactions with the police?
LikeLike
“Darren Wilson, a six-year veteran of the force with no prior disciplinary record.”
Sounds suspect. I wonder how many complaints they have against this guy.
LikeLike
Obama has a prime golden moment to show leadership on a very pressing national problem. But will he lose the opportunity?
LikeLike
^Jefe, stop it.
LikeLike
@ Solesearch
ON TOPIC: Black violence is on topic if it relates directly to how Black neighbourhoods are policed but NOT as a topic in its own right.
LikeLike
Darren Wilson does not live in Ferguson. He is from Crestwood, Missouri, a lily-white St Louis suburb that is 93.8% White and 1.6% Black.
That might affect his policing of a Black township.
I will do a post on him once there is enough information made public.
LikeLike
@jefe: Obama has the perfect opportunity to show leadership in this crisis? That’s exactly what i am talking about. What is he going to do about this? This is life and death. Why doesn’t he do something?
LikeLike
But i have a short memory they didn’t care about the Katrina people in New Orleans when they were drowning, i won’t hold my breath.
LikeLike
Darren Wilson so is he the one who shot Mike Brown? I need to look this up.
LikeLike
@ sb32199
“So far, no one has supplied numbers for the questions I asked.
How many suspects do police shoot? How many are black? How many are killed? Same questions for white suspects.”
Didn’t you read what I posted in response?
LikeLike
@ Mary
Darren Wilson is the cop who shot Mike Brown. They announced it this morning.
LikeLike
@abagond: I thank you.
LikeLike
Rayfield A Waller,
Your response to my question was a long diatribe on some rather pointless philosophical psychological babble topic. You never answered my questions with credible numbers.
As for police firing warning shots, well, maybe they do that in Germany, though I don’t know why they would. But they don’t do it in the US. That myth probably got its start in Hollywood.
Anyway, an article on the topic of police shooting deaths appeared in todays edition of USA Today. I posted a link under the Ferguson topic.
About 400 shooting deaths a year. A little less than 100 of the dead suspects are black. The other 300 are white. The numbers aren’t perfect, but I’m sure they’re close enough to give a fair picture.
LikeLike
By Obama showing leadership, I mean appointing someone personally to look into it, not just tell everyone to calm down and let the Justice Dept take care of it and failing to acknowledge there is a civil rights problem.
Looking into it is not just the Ferguson case, but problems across the country. For example, we had the Voter Registration Act of 1965 that targeted problem jurisdictions. We could target problem jurisdictions that have excessive police brutality, and set additional requirements on them. We could also end the excessive militarization of local police forces.
LikeLike
@Everyone
If I were you I would not trust the USA TODAY, ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT or your local clown news report when they tell you the number of police shootings, police shooting deaths, or Black deaths per year due to police shootings. As I showed in an earlier post, the numbers are bogus.
In 1994 and then again in 2000, the US Congress asked the Attorney Genera’s office to ‘compile and publish’ reliable annual statistics on police use of excessive force, police shootings, and police justifiable homicides. It was never done. Guess what? Yep, the FBI DOES NOT COLLECT ANY SUCH DATA. No one in our gov’t does, though unofficially, various gov’t sources will give estimates, all rejected by legitimate press investigations by real journalists as TOO LOW to be real.
As a journalist 12 years ago in Miami I spent a month trying to track down real statistics and was met with unbelievable disinformation. As I said in my earlier post:
“Averaging out the number fired by American police in 2011, 85 shots comes to about the average number of bullets fired by American police into ONE SUSPECT.
Of those 85 bullets used in 2011 by German police, 49 were warnings shots, 36 were aimed at criminal suspects, 15 people were injured, while 6 were killed–again this is data from Der Spiegel.
While police in the United States must file a report each time they use their firearm on duty, Die Spiegel found in investigating, that no statistics are readily available to the public in America on the amount of ammunition discharged annually. Still, the US population is almost four times that of Germany’s, while its level of police violence is geometrically higher.”
I compare us to Germany simply because the German government, unlike our government, compiles and reports reliable statistics. Unlike our government, they are required to by their laws, which aim to protect their citizens from their civilian (non-militarized) police.
I will leave this issue at this because I spent a month of my life 12 years ago coming to the realization that you would be foolish to believe what they tell you:
We should not treat police shooting deaths as we would baseball scores we can get easily from USA TODAY without a lot of investigation of our criminal, militarized, dangerously unregulated system of police enforcement. USA TODAY is great for baseball scores, but the WASHINGTON POST is better for issues impacting on the lives and well being of Black men (and increasingly, more and more Black women!) being murdered in rising numbers by the police, and THE POST has several times reported how false the numbers are.
More HONEST FBI and Justice Department (off the record) sources admitted to me when I interviewed them 12 years ago that official statistics are ‘incomplete’, maybe even, how shall we say it–a lie that comforts conservatives and apologists for police brutality. On average, since 2004, the annual number of ‘justifiable homicides’ is estimated NEAR 400 (a widely cited statistic from 2008, from Kevin Johnson’s Oct 15, 2008 USA TODAY article, a poorly researched article, if you ask me, entitled, “FBI: Justifiable homicides at highest in more than a decade”
The militarized police forces in this country did not just start behaving like criminals when Ferguson police shot Michael Brown to death, and Ferguson is not an anomaly. The police do not keep real statistics on how frequently and how unjustifiably they kill you even though they are required to file reports.The government doesn’t either, even though the Congress has tried to make them.
Now, what do you think that means? Right. It’s open season on you.
LikeLike
Shouldn’t all these people with their hands up be holding Swisher Sweet cigars?
LikeLike
from Vox Day:
A newly discovered witness statement is contradicting the mainstream media narrative of a man getting shot while surrendering with his hands up:
#1 How’d he get from there to there?
#2 Because he ran, the police was still in the truck – cause he was like over the truck
{crosstalk}
#2 But him and the police was both in the truck, then he ran – the police got out and ran after him
{crosstalk}
#2 Then the next thing I know he doubled back toward him cus – the police had his gun drawn already on him –
#1. Oh, the police got his gun
#2 The police kept dumpin on him, and I’m thinking the police kept missing – he like – be like – but he kept coming toward him
{crosstalk}
#2 Police fired shots – the next thing I know – the police was missing
#1 The Police?
#2 The Police shot him
#1 Police?
#2 The next thing I know … I’m thinking … the dude started running … (garbled something about “he took it from him”)
This is terribly important because if Mike Brown had been shot, and he advanced towards the cop instead of surrendering, it would substantiate the narrative that the policeman shot in self-defense due to the fact that he was being threatened with severe bodily harm.
This corroborates an account of the event given by a friend of Officer Darren Wilson:
Well, then Michael takes off and gets to be about 35 feet away. And, Darren’s first protocol is to pursue. So, he stands up and yells, “Freeze!” Michael and his friend turn around. And Michael taunts him… And then all the sudden he just started bumrushing him. He just started coming at him full speed. And, so he just started shooting. And, he just kept coming. And, so he really thinks he was on something.”
It’s far too unlikely that these two accounts are similar accidentally, having been from such disparate sources. The seeming witness in the background conversation is speaking with detail about the tragic shooting, and in a manner that runs contrary to the widespread version.
That doesn’t make it a good or necessary shoot, but it does belie the “execution” story.
LikeLike
Further Update from Vox Day:
The recently released autopsy report appears to indicate that the witness who claimed Michael Brown was shot in the back, with his arms raised up in surrender, was completely lying and the subsequent protests are based on an intrinsically false premise:
Michael Brown, the unarmed black teenager who was killed by a police officer, sparking protests around the nation, was shot at least six times, including twice in the head, a preliminary private autopsy performed on Sunday found.
One of the bullets entered the top of Mr. Brown’s skull, suggesting his head was bent forward when it struck him and caused a fatal injury, according to Dr. Michael M. Baden, the former chief medical examiner for the City of New York, who flew to Missouri on Sunday at the family’s request to conduct the separate autopsy. It was likely the last of bullets to hit him, he said.
Mr. Brown, 18, was also shot four times in the right arm, he said, adding that all the bullets were fired into his front.
My first thought is that was remarkably good shooting for a cop. The fact that Brown’s head was bent forward when he was struck indicates that both the video witness and the friend of the police officer involved were telling the truth when they reported that the 6’4″, 292-pound Brown was charging the officer when he was shot dead.
None of this excuses the militarization of the police across America, or the initially over-the-top response to the protests that involved heavy machine guns and armored personnel carriers. But it is looking increasingly as if, in this particular case, the entire affair is concerns nothing more than a cop justifiably shooting a vibrant criminal who tried to attack him.
Which, of course, says nothing about the justification for every other police shooting in the country.
… All those riots for nothing…
LikeLike
@ Biff
The doctors who carried out the autopsy said that his injuries were consistent with both running towards or away from the officer. They were also consistent with kneeling with his hands up.
LikeLike
@biff, the bullet at the top of the head does not indicate that he was charging but that he was falling over when the last shot was fired, according to former military. The shots to the are would indicate that his arms were down when hit. This does not support the claim that he was fighting the policeman. Also, the policeman did not know who the suspect of the robbery was when he stopped him so there is was little justification for the situation escalating as it did. The main question is still unanswered, if the shooting was justified and part of normal operations, why wasn’t this information released earlier? The delay in releasing the video from the store, the officer’s name and the autopsy makes the department look like they are hiding something. No matter how you twist it, theft of a pack of cigarettes does not warrant death.
LikeLike
Agabond, where did you get your information on what the doctors who did the autopsy said?
LikeLike
@ Anne
They held a press conference this morning.
LikeLike
I also found his about the autopsy and witness testimony. Just so we don’t have to rely only on Biffy’s account.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/18/us/michael-brown-autopsy-shows-he-was-shot-at-least-6-times.html?smid=tw-bna&_r=1
LikeLike
@biff,
“The recently released autopsy report appears to indicate that the witness who claimed Michael Brown was shot in the back, with his arms raised up in surrender, was completely lying and the subsequent protests are based on an intrinsically false premise:”
Um, no. What most of the witness said was that Brown was running from the cop who was firing at him, then he stopped, turned around and rasied his hands up in the air as he was shot by the cop. The autopsy report backs that up as 4 of the 6 shots that hit Brown hit him in the arm, including one in palm.
Also, there is NO evidence backing up the person who wasn’t there and called into a rightwing talk radio show claiming to be a friend of the cop’s that Brown “charged or rushed” the cop. ALL of the eyewitness testimony from the people who were actually there, and in one case live tweeted the event, totally disputes that dubious assertion though I realize that the “superhuman black brute” is a standard rightwing trope.
LikeLike
@Anne,
“This does not support the claim that he was fighting the policeman. Also, the policeman did not know who the suspect of the robbery was when he stopped him so there is was little justification for the situation escalating as it did.”
What also doesn’t support the claim of a “fight” is that there is a cellphone video up on huffpo that shows the cop right after the incident and he’s not injured at all and the only indication of any struggle prior to the shooting was Brown trying to get away from the officer who reached out of his vehicle to grab him unless one believes the rather remarkable tale being spun in some quarters that Brown reached into the cop’s vehicle to try and get his gun (say what!!!?) and the struggle began then.
The robbery thing is even muddier. Not only does it seem unlikely that the cop knew about it when he began harassing Brown and Johnson, the store’s attorney gave a press conference and stated that neither the store owner nor staff even bothered to call 911 or report the theft.
The Ferguson police are trying to reverse engineer their story and smear the victim. Their lastest smear attempt is leaking the Brown had MJ in his system which, as well all know, has a entirely unique effect on black people, and turns them into rampaging beasts as opposed to its effects on others.
LikeLike
Police are generally supposed to take suspects into custody not execute them on the spot. So the questions that need to be asked are:
1) What crime was Brown suspected of that the officer in question had knowledge of at the time of the encounter for which he could have been arrested? In other words, what was the PROBABLE CAUSE?
Then
2) Why couldn’t an armed policeman take an unarmed citizen (who eventually surrendered according to some reports) into custody without killing him? Was the officer in danger and if so how?
These are the questions I would like answered.
LikeLike
@ B. R.
If I have misinterpreted you I am sorry. I will read what you write more closely, and at least go back to answering you directly. Sincerity is important to me– even if I disagree with someone, it matters to me more that they are being sincere, which you are indicating to me that you were–and that I missed your point. Again, I’m sorry. I will pay closer attention.
LikeLike
Not only that the transcipt that biff is using comes from a top conservative site. The video they put up actually contradicts what they transcribed.
“#2 The police kept dumpin on him, and I’m thinking the police kept missing – he like – be like – but he kept coming toward him”
Particularly the last part is so hard to hear with all the laughing and everybody talking at once.
As for the shot in the back claims, I have to say comprehension lacking in masses. The guy never said he was hit in the back.
LikeLike
[…] Parish, LA)2014: Dante Parker (San Bernardino County, CA)2014: Ezell Ford (Los Angeles, CA)2014: Michael Brown (Ferguson, MO)2014: Tyree Woodson (Baltimore, MD)2014: John Crawford III (Beavercreek, […]
LikeLike
I haven’t commented on this blog in quite a while because I realized It is an exercise in futility. This blog is basically a bunch of racist complaining about racism. Most of you do not wish to hear anything that does not reaffirm your belief that white America is inherently racist and that the average white person
sees all non whites (but especially blacks) as inferior, and they go out of their way to discriminate against them.
Most of the people I see commenting here seem to believe that the reason that “Ferguson is 67% black but the mayor and police commissioner are white. The police force is 94% white. ” must be because of institutionalized racism against blacks.
Are there no other possible explanations for this?
What if most of the black people in Ferguson simply don’t want to be police officers?
Is there some evidence that blacks in Ferguson are applying to be police officers and are being rejected?
It befuddles me why people seem so desperate to find and point out racism that they see it everywhere. I believe that a lot of white people feel the need to find and visibly point out racism to others to prove to everyone that they themselves are not racist. How could they be? They are actively pointing it out and condemning it in others…right?
In his post, inthisjournal said:
“As long as black folk engage in behavior that keeps them at the bottom of the social hierarchy, then things like this will persist. It’s not rocket science. Low functioning/dysfunctional cultures will be exploited by higher functioning cultures.
Right in front of black people is the model of the Jews. They came to America, openly discriminated against and largely despised, but within a few generations, they have come to dominate the major institutions of the society. Instead of (always) begging and crying, why not focus on producing a superior culture that can protect its interests and surpass those who hate them?”
I believe he is implying that the problem that blacks face in this country is not so much one of racism but one of culture. While I disagree that white culture is exploiting black culture, I think he is correct in identifying the real issue that the black community in America must overcome to achieve its highest potential.
Maybe the reason that there are so few black police officers in Ferguson, despite blacks being a majority race there, is because being a police officer is not something that is glorified in black culture…in fact, you could say it is almost vilified. Maybe the reason that blacks are incarcerated at higher rates than other races is not some white conspiracy ,but because the culture that young black men are immersed in glorifies crime.
I am no expert on rap music, but I understand that the more violent and criminal the lyrics, the more “gangsta” it is the more popular it is. Ive heard lyrics that glorify crime, vilify police, glorify violence, degrade women, and overall legitimize the “thug” lifestyle. I have also seen young black men with headphones on walking around memorizing and reciting those type of lyrics as if they were the gospels.
What I also see if many successful black people in America and one thing that almost all of them have in common (aside from the actual rap musicians) is that they have rejected the culture of gangs, entitlement, and victim-hood. They stopped making excuses and exploited the many opportunities available instead of seeking out reasons to justify their belief that their entire race is being oppressed.
The Michael Brown case is a prime example. There are no conclusive facts known to the public that prove that Darren Wilson did anything other than what he was trained to do to protect his own life. It may very well be that he murdered Michael in cold blood… but no one knows at this point. The FBI is still investigating and thus far Wilson has not been charged with any wrong doing. Obama has sent Eric Holder to oversee the investigation so, rest assured, if there was any wrong doing Wilson will be held accountable. Despite this fact though there are nightly protests and riots and looting based on the assumption that ,once again, an innocent young black man has been murdered in cold blood by a white person just for being black.
Is there racism in America? Sure there is. Are all whites racist? Of course not. Are all racists white? No they are not…and I would argue that, in fact, there is a higher percent of racist in the black community than in the white.
Racism exists, it always has and it probably always will in one form or another.
However, blaming racism for all the ills of society, or a certain segment of society, accomplices nothing except to cause further division. I do not believe that cops go looking for black men to kill, or that they want to kill anyone. I don’t believe that there is some conspiracy to oppress blacks that intentionally populates police departments in black neighborhoods with white officers in order to persecute them.
I think that the biggest obstacle facing the black community in America is not racism but a culture that instills in children the notion that they are somehow victims of society. That they are different from the white man who wants to persecute them and whom the can’t trust. That being a gangster or rapper is the highest pinnacle of achievement and that they shouldn’t participate in the “system” because the system is rigged against them.
LikeLike
I didn’t know Bill O’Reily is commenting on this blog.
LikeLike
Nightly looting? Lol. Please point me to the news of that.
LikeLike
” I would argue that, in fact, there is a higher percent of racist in the black community than in the white.”—-Anyway else interested in seeing ifarmturnips argue this?
LikeLike
^^^Oh lord, send this fool to the broken record department.
LikeLike
@Abagond
Have you read these?
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/incredibly-honest-yet-disheartening-infuriating-confession-cop/
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/officer-darren-wilson-identified-shooter-ferguson-teen-killing/
LikeLike
The Broken record argument “Blacks are more racist than whites” So blinded by white privilege and whiteness. Such a foolish goat. ifarmturnips needs to go rent, or buy a clue. I am befuddled as to why individuals of his/her ilk are so blind that they can’t see why black people are reacting to their apathy and racist mentality. And with that long winded racist screed. ifarmturnips protests much.
LikeLike
ifarmturnips is the racist painting making generalizations about all black people. Using all the negative racist stereotypes painting all black people with the same dirty paint brush.
LikeLike
@ Sharina
Thanks. Ferguson makes over $2.5 million a year from fines and court fees. Ferguson is 67% Black, yet 86% of the motorists the police stop are Black.
More:
http://www.newsweek.com/ferguson-profiling-police-courts-shooting-264744
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H32oc0O7jZs)
LikeLike
It befuddles me why people seem so desperate to find and point out racism that they see it everywhere.
The only ‘befuddlement’ is the thoughts emanating from your post.
LikeLike
ifarmturnips said,
“I think that the biggest obstacle facing the black community in America is not racism but a culture that instills in children the notion that they are somehow victims of society. That they are different from the white man who wants to persecute them and whom the can’t trust. That being a gangster or rapper is the highest pinnacle of achievement and that they shouldn’t participate in the “system” because the system is rigged against them.”
I see this as the new racism in a way. Instead of looking down on black people due to their skin color, they instead want to put the blame on culture. But white people have always, ALWAYS looked down on anything considered black or African as being uncivilized, which is funny considering white people’s history of bloodshed, imperialism, exploitation and wholesale violence and destruction for the preservation and empowerment of the white race.
Yes, we are different from white people, and for reasons unknown, most of them hate us for that simple fact. But to say so would make them look crazy and sound stupid. So, to try to sound a little more intelligent, they instead blame it all on culture. The monolithic image of us loving rap, thuggery, gangsterism, welfare, overdone, out-of-wedlock births, and violence is deeply ingrained in their minds as being all what black people are all about. Hence, they will justify any and all deaths of black men AND black women at the hands of police and will conclude any black person killed by violence by ANYONE was inevitable because of his/her culture that we all seem to worship. That’s why most people who support Darren Wilson is white, and they think Michael Brown deserved to get killed.
ifarmturnips, I am curious to know what you know about black people aside from what your family, friends and/or the media tells you. I wonder if you’ve ever talked to black people in real life. I wonder if you truly believe that what you said and think isn’t racist even though it is.
From your long comment, it shows that you know nothing of the black experience in America, otherwise your broken record-brand of white-splaining wouldn’t have escaped your keyboard. Go out, learn from better sources than BET and Fox News and then come back.
LikeLike
@ ifarmturnips
You are talking in your sleep. A shock awaits you when you wake up.
LikeLike
Rayfeild, just to reiterate, I do admire many things you say on here , and , your revelation of being a reporter in Miami is just an example why, how interesting,
Brothawolf, spot on, this person doesnt get black American culture at all…he lumps it into a negative stereotype, when the St Louis and East St Louis area is loaded with black American cultural history, that America benafitted from..
Miles Davis is from there , he changed the face of jazz four times…the Kathurine Dunham dance company was based there , and she is a dance icon…Clark Terry, Lester Bowie…etc etc, and the historic political history of the Dread Scott case, as Abagond pointed out
This person doesnt realise that white Americans invented this fascination with gangsters…James Cagney, a broadway song and dance man, George Raft, a rumba dance performer, it was big in the thirties, and Humphry Bogart,all became big stars , and made their careers as gangsters because of white American fascination with gangsters, and Godfather ,Good Fellas, etc, justg carry on the tradition…its so acceptable for white people to be fascinated with gangsters…
talk about cultural fault lines…this is where white Americans just want to lump black american culture into something it isnt, and pretend they arnt doing exactly what they criticise
i am back in Brazil now, and that means , the extra coverage of Ferguson will be less…i saw lots in the States, Im even happy to say that I actualy saw a lot of issues raised on this blog , disscussed on TV, out in the open…I would like to think that if i read between the lines in the news reports, I actualy saw what the real people of Ferguson said and want
LikeLike
@B.R.
Thank you. I am not in Miami now, I am in Detroit, but I spent nearly a decade living and teaching in Miami, doing spec journalism and regular journalism for the South Florida news journal, Progreso Semenal and for http://www.porsiemprecuba.com, I now teach Caribbean Politics, Economics and Culture at Wayne State in Detroit. I understand where you are coming from now because you are actually IN Brazil. La velocidad de Dios mi hermano, siempre.
LikeLike
@ifarmturenips: All black people are not a monolith get a clue and some enlightenment.
LikeLike
Há, Rayfield , we missed each other in Miami, I was just there a week at the Sagamore Art Hotel , a great place, recording overdubs at South Beach studio, with Brazilian guitarust Phil Fest and I did some recording live up bop in Noise Match studio with some very hot Miami musicians , Juan Turros , Max Farber and Marcel Salas…very impresive musicians and recording studios…
I really am impressed with the South American and Caribean , led by the Cuban influence , of energy converging on South Beach, along with hip hop influence of black Americans , and their presence as tourists there..I wish I could commit a few months there…
I know you could tell me a lot about the city, having been that involved…
Obrigado , mas eu não falo espanhol, como voce falou, eu falo Portuges massacrando o língua , which Abagond sais I have to translate to put up, which means , thanks , but I dont speak Spanish like you speak , I speak a butchered Portuguese, há
LikeLike
B. R. said,
Brothawolf, spot on, this person doesnt get black American culture at all…he lumps it into a negative stereotype, when the St Louis and East St Louis area is loaded with black American cultural history, that America benafitted from.
Thanks.
It gets under my skin the way some people welcome negative stereotypes of people they know so little about, project them on members of the same group and expect that group to accept it. To me that’s insanity. It basically means that you want people to fit your image of how they are. And there are people who search as often as possible for those kinds of people to circulate the image as far and and wide as possible.
They will even go so far as to produce those images out of thin air. How sick do you have to be to reduce humans to low-ranking 2-D cutouts?
Many cops, especially Darren Wilson, are trained to fear the negative stereotypical black thug. They have the image and fear it. They see it before they see a human being.
LikeLike
@ ifarmturnips
I doubt that is it. After all, White Americans:
1. Are the main consumers of rap music.
2. Watch shows like “The Sopranos” and “Breaking Bad” which show criminals in a sympathetic light.
3. Make heroes of Bonnie and Clyde, Jesse James and Columbus.
4. Built their country on stolen land and stolen lives.
5. Put Indian killers on their money, carve huge sculptures of them (Mount Rushmore) and name places after them (Washington, Jackson, Lincoln).
6. Glorify the conquest of northern Mexico in their history books.
7. Have a huge gun culture.
8. Have sympathy for mass shooters.
9. Excuse genocide, slavery and the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians – on this very blog!
10. Defend men who gun down unarmed teenagers, men like George Zimmerman and Darren Wilson.
More:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2012/12/19/bowling-for-columbine/
LikeLike
From the desk of Professor Waller:
“Goddamnit, look! We live here and they live there. We black and they white. They got things and we ain’t. They do things and we can’t. It’s just like livin’ in jail.”
― Richard Wright, from “Native Son”
“Violence is a personal necessity for the oppressed…It is not a strategy consciously devised. It is the deep, instinctive expression of a human being denied individuality.”
― Richard Wright, from “Native Son”
“The white folks like for us to be religious, then they can do what they want to with us.”
― Richard Wright, from “Native Son”
LikeLike
@ifarmturnips
While your right; problems that plague the black community may stem from cultural aspects of their aspect of society it seems pretty iffy to say that no corruption exists within the culture of the police.
Even if only 1/1000 cops, judges and lawyers is racist and bigoted when you factor in the blue shield and just how many clients lawyers can see and how many people come before a judge in their life time.
You kind of realize, it wouldn’t really take that much corruption and racism to effectively make it into a systematically racist organization.
All they have to do is protect their own.
LikeLike
As a L.A. native, I can honestly say that the L.A. Times is NO different than the N.Y. Times or any other bias source of news. Most of what’s written about African-Americans and Africans in the L.A. Times is straight-up NEGATIVE! I’ll gather up some links pertaining to the L.A. Times and black people.
LikeLike
I think people are starting to realize the change of uniform:
FROM THE NOOSE TO THE REVOLVER
LikeLike
Live stream of protest in Ferguson (at the time of posting this).
(http://revolution-news.com/ferguson-protesters-block-highway-70-st-louis-watch-stand-police-live/)
LikeLike
@Rayfield Waller: Richard Wright’s Native Son is one of my favorite books.
LikeLike
@ Mary Burrell:
Yes, I love all Wright’s novels! Have you read the REALLY harrowing one, the acid test for Wright lovers (if you can get through it without a nervous breakdown you really love Wright)? It’s “The Long Dream”. Don’t try it unless you really have the courage to get though it–it is frighteningly real and truthful about America under segregation.
LikeLike
@RayWaller: No, never heard of that one. But i could get through it. I will put it on my list.
LikeLike
@Rayfield Waller: I have only read “Black Boy” and “Native Son”
LikeLike
Hello again friends. I recently came across an interview from 2011 on YouTube in which Dinesh D’Souza talks about the problems facing black Americans that echos some of the sentiments made in my post above. He also goes into detail about more issues and is able to make his point more eloquently than I ever could. It is 20 minutes long but well worth the time.
LikeLike
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvFG6jH_ocY)
LikeLike
@ ifarmturnips
That is Broken Record #17, one of the four frames of colour-blind racism. Please discuss it on its own thread:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2011/01/05/black-pathology/
LikeLike
@ifarmturnips:
Continue to do so.
LikeLike
@ George
National Report is a fake news site:
http://www.snopes.com/media/notnews/mikebrownun.asp
LikeLike
Most of the internet has become fake.
“News is information people don’t want you to know; everything else is advertising”
LikeLike
This shooting has opened up old wounds in regard to the American civil rights movement. Now is the time to heal and walk with our fellow citizens. We must all call for peaceful and meaningful discussions when we debate race in our country. In order to enact a change, citizens need to vote with their pens, not weapons.
LikeLike
with all the contradicting stories of eye witnesses and the completely different stories of the police – how do you choose which one is true? How do you make a stand and start pointing fingers? Most people I know, hate the police and would say anything to make them look bad. I know that our government is corrupt up one side and down the other and would cover up swatting a fly – just to do it.
Do you just pick the one you want to be true?
Without facts, it’s hard for me to say or do anything.(as if i could do anything)
LikeLike
Deuce, I suggest you go talk to some police officers, preferably veterans, or better yet, RETIRED.
Ask them questions, offer to buy em a beer… find the policemans benevolent association in your area and find out when their next fund raiser is?
I suspect you have more in common with an average police officer than you have with Obama.
Police, Fire, EMT,… those are all public service blue collar jobs; I doubt Obama has ever seen his own blood, let alone got dirt under his finger nails or broke a sweat without a basketball in his hands.
LikeLike
Dear Black people, I want to say beg to black people need stop that damages whole business. Please show respect police men, women and government can you do that. Black people should ask for forgive them and business. No matter love any racist. Keep peaceful
LikeLike
Dear christina
Please get a clue. Stupidity is the number one killer in America. Please show respect to your educators and not make them look like failures. You should ask for forgiveness for posting such dribble.
With love and peace. 🙂
LikeLike
Michael Brown might not be the perfect poster boy, but maybe Tamir Rice can. Maybe this is the Emmett Till moment we have been waiting for.
LikeLike
@ jefe
So I suppose Michael Brown is Claudette Colvin to Tamir Rice’s Rosa Parks.
I understand an innocent 12-year-old who did absolutely nothing wrong other than be in the vicinity of a trigger-happy cop seems like a better figure to rally around than a grown man who’s being accused of robbery and assault post-mortem. But doing that is just plain wrong.
It reeks of respectability politics to high heaven and it’s shameful that we are even allowing people to guide us into that trap. Neither one deserved to die and we should be fighting based on that, not who’s the best person to memorialize and rally around.
LikeLike
@ML,
Yes, it seems plain wrong, but the police and media managed to vilify Michael Brown. Do we need to find a victim that cannot be vilified for at least some of the country to “get it”?
LikeLike
@ George Ryder
The Scientific Reaction to ‘White’ people:
The White Race is completely alien to this planet because they ARE descendants from White Aliens
The White race are the descendents of the White Annunaki/Nordic Aliens.
The black race was the slave race created by the Annunaki/Nordic Aliens by genetically manipulating the DNA of the Cro Magnon and Ape.
It is no mistake that countless ancient civilisations and cultures like the ancient Mayans, Egyptians and Indians (Indus Valley Indians) around the world depict their Kings and Queens as “fair” while their slaves as “black”.
On top of that, the White race burn their skin easily in sunlight, age very quickly and go bald easily, indicating the fact their habitat on Earth is not natural to them.
Those who don’t believe and say that the white skin colour is due to the lack of sunlight in cold temperate regions, I only point to the Eskimo and innuit people who technically have lived in the arctic regions for thousands of years and yet are Brown.
_____________________________________
oops! LOL. One of MY facebook friends posted this and for some reason everyone thought it was a legitimate news source. Shucks, golleee.
i’m apparently not the only one fooled by this National Report. it seems even Fox News & some other media companies mistakenly took their stories seriously as well LOL.
________________________________________
Of course, George, this ‘national report’ from Facebook about White people is stupid. It is equally stupid to be talking about how most of the internet is now false (and so you repeat the most overtly racist and disrespectful crap you can deliberately scrape out of the garbage can of FACEBOOK? If you went into a restaurant that everyone says has bad food would that justify heading straight for the garbage in back in the alley and eating a meal there???) You surely have enough sense to realize that even if most of the internet were NOT false, FACEBOOK would still be the LAST SOURCE anyone should trust enough to risk insulting all of the Black commentators you share space with here on this page. Do you see from my false ‘report’ above why your insidious crap is offensive, ugly, rank and insulting? You are like some Klansman who turns his hood into a party hat and won’t actually wear it on his face or burn a cross, yet who blows a dog whistle every chance he gets, like a coward. Others are tolerant of you, but let me warn you, I will call you on your racism and will lobby Abagond to ban your butt if you keep this up, Even if you are not meaning to be a primitive racist, or to get a rise out of Black people by baiting them, I say such dog-faced ignorance is no excuse either. Wise up.
LikeLike
@Rayfield Waller: “Preach.”
LikeLike
Where did the “Obama” interjection come from – does he play basketball?
LikeLike
As more details are being published about the release of the grand jury investigation, it is clear that Michael Brown will never be a good poster boy. But maybe in conjunction with all the other events, this might still have been the spark for the movement.
LikeLike
@ Jefe
I LIKE that Michael Brown is not the perfect victim. The whole perfect victim thing buys into respectability politics and the conditional worth of Black people. That is itself dehumanizing, a slippery slope that leads to – stuff like police brutality. It is not NATURAL to kill defenceless people – unless they have been dehumanized first.
LikeLike
Notice that people like James Holmes (Batman shooter) and Adam Lanza (Sandy Hook), who killed defenceless White people, are presumed to be sick in the head. But not a single one of these cops who kill unarmed Black people are, ever, at least not as far as I can remember. INSTEAD they are protected and defended, even if it means bending the law and believing lies that would shame a ten-year-old. What does that SAY!!?
LikeLike
This young lady was very thorough:
http://kansasexposed.org/2014/11/29/ku-journalism-major-shreds-case-against-mike-brown/
LikeLike
You would think that the Federal investigators might be at least half as thorough?
I had a suspicion that the supposed video of MB robbing the store was little too timely. The thugs in blue are guilty of murder – and acts even worse.
LikeLike
@Just me
I will have to view it again but some Hispanic guy I was talking to told me that it was not mike brown. He said the guy in the video was wearing some things different from him.
Not sure so I have to double check.
LikeLike
Thanks Sharina for the link. I really would like to see the owner of the Ferguson market come forward. Surprised reporters did not go after that.
LikeLike
@Jefe
You are welcome and like you I very curious on what the store owner has to say.
LikeLike
[…] Parish, LA) 2014: Dante Parker (San Bernardino County, CA) 2014: Ezell Ford (Los Angeles, CA) 2014: Michael Brown (Ferguson, MO) 2014: Tyree Woodson (Baltimore, MD) 2014: John Crawford III (Beavercreek, OH) 2014: […]
LikeLike
[…] Parish, LA) 2014: Dante Parker (San Bernardino County, CA) 2014: Ezell Ford (Los Angeles, CA) 2014: Michael Brown (Ferguson, MO) 2014: Tyree Woodson (Baltimore, MD) 2014: John Crawford III (Beavercreek, OH) 2014: […]
LikeLike
[…] Parish, LA) 2014: Dante Parker (San Bernardino County, CA) 2014: Ezell Ford (Los Angeles, CA) 2014: Michael Brown (Ferguson, MO) 2014: Tyree Woodson (Baltimore, MD) 2014: John Crawford III (Beavercreek, OH) 2014: […]
LikeLike
So we know for a fact now that
1) no “robbery” occurred
2) Brown and the store owner had some type of preexisting arrangement as shown on video
3) Wilson admitted that Brown never reached for his gun
4) Wilson admitted that Brown had no weapon other than his body
5) Wilson admitted to calling blacks the n-word
6) Wilson admitted that other Ferguson officer(s) use the n-word
So Wilson is a racist liar and all the MSM and white racists who supported him should be ashamed.
LikeLike
Michael Browns family settled with the city for 1.5 million.
After all the talk about how wrong the public was, how Michael brought this all upon himself and how “right” the police were, the payout points right back at the Fergonson police.
The payout should be 1000x that.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/michael-browns-family-settles-lawsuit-15-million-ferguson/story?id=48234904
LikeLike
[…] Parish, LA) 2014: Dante Parker (San Bernardino County, CA) 2014: Ezell Ford (Los Angeles, CA) 2014: Michael Brown (Ferguson, MO) 2014: Tyree Woodson (Baltimore, MD) 2014: John Crawford III (Beavercreek, OH) 2014: […]
LikeLike