The Ongoing State of Ferguson/Systemic Racial Prejudice in the USA

[Landlord]

 

 

I live in Chicago.

 

 

Ok, so you have seen some bad neighborhoods.

 

The fact you think this is going on just because it's "white cops" is naive. You think if some white guys caused this guy to have a spinal injury, there would be a different reaction.

 

Anyways, this guy had a nice little rap sheet, and everyone is defending this guy like he's jesus christ.

 

 

 

The only defending I have seen is defending of the exact situation he was arrested in. From what I have read, he was not suspected of anything, nor was he committing any kind of crime. Regardless, the reaction you're seeing in the city isn't nearly as much a defense of a career criminal, but an attack against perceived institutions that are literally killing people.

 

Again, that's what I understand as perception due to what I glean from my black friends, not what I am claiming as reality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On a separate note, there are tons of images that aren't getting circulated as much because they don't make as good of entertainment, but are great to see:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[walksalone]

The only defending I have seen is defending of the exact situation he was arrested in. From what I have read, he was not suspected of anything, nor was he committing any kind of crime. Regardless, the reaction you're seeing in the city isn't nearly as much a defense of a career criminal, but an attack against perceived institutions that are literally killing people.

 

Again, that's what I understand as perception due to what I glean from my black friends, not what I am claiming as reality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On a separate note, there are tons of images that aren't getting circulated as much because they don't make as good of entertainment, but are great to see:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When you have a rap sheet that long, at that point you bring a lot of that sh*t on yourself. I'm still wondering where the outcry is for kids getting killed in Paterson? Nobody cares because there kids, or because they weren't killed by white cops? Thats whats wrong with a large portion of the media...

[JJ Husker]

I can't shake the feeling that, of the people involved in the rioting, there is only a small handful that really care about what may have happened to Gray and the vast majority were just looking for an excuse to behave like thugs. Sorry but burning buildings in your neighborhood, destroying businesses, and beating innocent people is not the response of anybody I want to consider a law abiding fellow citizen.

 

I applaud that mother for slapping her son upside the head. Seems they could use a whole lot more like her in some of these inner city cesspools. Some people need to learn to help themselves rather than blaming others and waiting for others to give them something they aren't willing to work for themselves. There's a reason these problems occur where they do and it doesn't have near as much to do with the well publicized lightning rod moments as the media would like you to believe. There is an element in our society simply waiting for the opportunity to go berserk. It just happens to be convenient to blame it on whitey or racism or police brutality but the real problem resides, much deeper, in these communities. Too many people have lost hope and the will to work for what they want. That is not the fault of years of oppression, it is the fault of broken families and lack of proper role models and subpar parenting. At this point, it is just a self perpetuating problem that will require some people realizing they need to help themselves rather than taking to the streets and throwing bricks.

[BigRedBuster]

JJ....I agree.

 

I want to say this before I make my comment. I fully understand that police have made major mistakes that have caused much of the problems. They shouldn't make these mistakes. Every effort needs to be made to make sure these mistakes are corrected and don't happen.

 

Now, in agreement with your second paragraph, I believe the mistakes made by police are in large part because they are having to deal with long term major issues of family structure and community leadership. When you have large numbers of these families with no structure and no father roll model, it can cause major problems. Those kids then look outside the homes for that leadership and guess what? The Crips and Bloods are a major force in these neighborhoods. I about threw up last night when I saw members of these gangs interviewed on TV and they were saying they need to fix these problems. You f'ing ass holes are a major part of the problem.

 

Police then come into these neighborhoods and have to deal with these problems that are caused by kids not being raised to respect their neighborhoods and how to not be a criminal. They then go too far because they become very jaded and numb to the problems...and yes...that leads to a racist attitude.

 

The police and city management need to do what is needed to make sure mistakes are made and police are doing their job the way it's needed. BUT, change needs to happen in these communities otherwise nothing will change from the other side long term.

[Landlord]

JJ....I agree.

 

I want to say this before I make my comment. I fully understand that police have made major mistakes that have caused much of the problems. They shouldn't make these mistakes. Every effort needs to be made to make sure these mistakes are corrected and don't happen.

 

Now, in agreement with your second paragraph, I believe the mistakes made by police are in large part because they are having to deal with long term major issues of family structure and community leadership. When you have large numbers of these families with no structure and no father roll model, it can cause major problems. Those kids then look outside the homes for that leadership and guess what? The Crips and Bloods are a major force in these neighborhoods. I about threw up last night when I saw members of these gangs interviewed on TV and they were saying they need to fix these problems. You f'ing ass holes are a major part of the problem.

 

Police then come into these neighborhoods and have to deal with these problems that are caused by kids not being raised to respect their neighborhoods and how to not be a criminal. They then go too far because they become very jaded and numb to the problems...and yes...that leads to a racist attitude.

 

The police and city management need to do what is needed to make sure mistakes are made and police are doing their job the way it's needed. BUT, change needs to happen in these communities otherwise nothing will change from the other side long term.

 

 

This is all really good, but responsibility doesn't fall solely, 100% on the communities for the plight of the communities.

 

Think about it. The urban black community is rampant with broken families, gang presence, and the like, and that all stems from an epidemic of poverty. Now, individual people have to hold their own responsibilities for their own actions, but systemic poverty like that? It's a complex issue that finds fault in a lot more areas than just people being lazy. It's not just SELF-perpetuating, it's part of a cycle that is bigger and has more pieces than just that one, and some of those pieces are legislature and institutional control that cut the legs out from underneath you. I've been volunteering with a non-profit in Chicago that seeks to provide mentorship and support systems for fatherless boys in the inner city (literally on the worst blocks in all of Chicago), and what I've learned is that these kids are absolutely trapped. Because their parents were trapped. Because their parents before them were trapped. And it will continue to go on this way ad infinitum unless the rest of us decide it's important that people get the same opportunities that we've had.

 

At the end of the day, regardless of what percentages of blame lie where, people need help. People are starving, people are dying, people are never being able to live life abundantly. People simultaneously need help from conditions outside of them, and also need help despite themselves. This is true of all of us to a certain degree.

 

 

“…I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.”

- Martin Luther King Jr.

aka "Yeah, rioting is problematic and awful. But you know what's even worse? People being murdered and rendered voiceless." or "When you shake up a bottle of pop, do you blame the pop for bursting with pressure or do you blame the force that shook it?"

[Creighton Duke]

 

JJ....I agree.

 

I want to say this before I make my comment. I fully understand that police have made major mistakes that have caused much of the problems. They shouldn't make these mistakes. Every effort needs to be made to make sure these mistakes are corrected and don't happen.

 

Now, in agreement with your second paragraph, I believe the mistakes made by police are in large part because they are having to deal with long term major issues of family structure and community leadership. When you have large numbers of these families with no structure and no father roll model, it can cause major problems. Those kids then look outside the homes for that leadership and guess what? The Crips and Bloods are a major force in these neighborhoods. I about threw up last night when I saw members of these gangs interviewed on TV and they were saying they need to fix these problems. You f'ing ass holes are a major part of the problem.

 

Police then come into these neighborhoods and have to deal with these problems that are caused by kids not being raised to respect their neighborhoods and how to not be a criminal. They then go too far because they become very jaded and numb to the problems...and yes...that leads to a racist attitude.

 

The police and city management need to do what is needed to make sure mistakes are made and police are doing their job the way it's needed. BUT, change needs to happen in these communities otherwise nothing will change from the other side long term.

 

 

This is all really good, but responsibility doesn't fall solely, 100% on the communities for the plight of the communities.

 

 

 

The quoted is absolutely true. SOMEONE had to contribute to the plight of these communities. Somebody higher up....but who...?

 

 

 

A few weeks ago, there was an election in Ferguson, Mo., the result of which was to treble the number of African Americans on that unhappy suburb’s city council. This was greeted in some corners with optimism — now, at last, the city’s black residents would have a chance to see to securing their own interests. This optimism flies in the face of evidence near — St. Louis — and far — Baltimore, Detroit, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Atlanta, Los Angeles, San Francisco . . .

 

St. Louis has not had a Republican mayor since the 1940s, and in its most recent elections for the board of aldermen there was no Republican in the majority of the contests; the city is overwhelmingly Democratic, effectively a single-party political monopoly from its schools to its police department. Baltimore has seen two Republicans sit in the mayor’s office since the 1920s — and none since the 1960s. Like St. Louis, it is effectively a single-party political monopoly from its schools to its police department. Philadelphia has not elected a Republican mayor since 1948. The last Republican to be elected mayor of Detroit was congratulated on his victory by President Eisenhower. Atlanta, a city so corrupt that its public schools are organized as a criminal conspiracy against its children, last had a Republican mayor in the 19th century. Its municipal elections are officially nonpartisan, but the last Republican to run in Atlanta’s 13th congressional district did not manage to secure even 30 percent of the vote; Atlanta is effectively a single-party political monopoly from its schools to its police department.

 

American cities are by and large Democratic-party monopolies, monopolies generally dominated by the so-called progressive wing of the party. The results have been catastrophic, and not only in poor black cities such as Baltimore and Detroit. Money can paper over some of the defects of progressivism in rich, white cities such as Portland and San Francisco, but those are pretty awful places to be non-white and non-rich, too: Blacks make up barely 9 percent of the population in San Francisco, but they represent 40 percent of those arrested for murder, and they are arrested for drug offenses at ten times their share of the population. Criminals make their own choices, sure, but you want to take a look at the racial disparity in educational outcomes and tell me that those low-income nine-year-olds in Wisconsin just need to buck up and bootstrap it?

Link to the entire outstanding article here:

 

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417601/riot-plagued-baltimore-catastrophe-entirely-democratic-partys-own-making-kevin-d

 

If the "progressives" are supposed to be working to help the underprivileged, why have they been such catastrophic failures at it in cities where they have, whether via charismatic presence or chicanery, been entrusted to do so? Why are the "systematic prejudices" that you like to continuously shout about from the hills, being perpetuated by those who have been entrusted to alleviate them?

 

You say you live in Chicago now, but we won't even get into the Daley machine for obvious reasons.

[Street Novelist]

great article Creighton Duke and an issue I never hear CNN or MSNBC address....

[NUance]

I've been volunteering with a non-profit in Chicago that seeks to provide mentorship and support systems for fatherless boys in the inner city (literally on the worst blocks in all of Chicago), and what I've learned is that these kids are absolutely trapped. Because their parents were trapped. Because their parents before them were trapped. And it will continue to go on this way ad infinitum unless the rest of us decide it's important that people get the same opportunities that we've had.

 

 

 

At the end of the day, regardless of what percentages of blame lie where, people need help. People are starving, people are dying, people are never being able to live life abundantly. People simultaneously need help from conditions outside of them, and also need help despite themselves. This is true of all of us to a certain degree.

 

+1 x 1000

 

 

Seriously. If more people put an effort into solving the problem, like you are doing, the problem would cease to exist.

[ZRod]

Don't call someone acting thuggish a thug you guys.

[Creighton Duke]

Well this is interesting

 

 

 

"Prisoner in van said Freddie Gray was ‘trying to injure himself,’ document says"

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/prisoner-in-van-said-freddie-gray-was-banging-against-the-walls-during-ride/2015/04/29/56d7da10-eec6-11e4-8666-a1d756d0218e_story.html?tid=sm_tw

 

 

 

BALTIMORE — A prisoner sharing a police transport van with Freddie Gray told investigators that he could hear Gray “banging against the walls” of the vehicle and believed that he “was intentionally trying to injure himself,” according to a police document obtained by The Washington Post.

 

If true....not so good for those trying to make an incident out of this. However, I admit that this is a rather dubious source and, as we all (well, some of us) know, media will do and say anything to cause (or extend) an outrage.

[knapplc]

Didn't Gray have a severed spinal cord?

[JJ Husker]

Didn't Gray have a severed spinal cord?

 

He intentionally banged his head really hard?

[BigRedBuster]

Well this is interesting

 

 

 

"Prisoner in van said Freddie Gray was ‘trying to injure himself,’ document says"

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/prisoner-in-van-said-freddie-gray-was-banging-against-the-walls-during-ride/2015/04/29/56d7da10-eec6-11e4-8666-a1d756d0218e_story.html?tid=sm_tw

 

 

 

BALTIMORE — A prisoner sharing a police transport van with Freddie Gray told investigators that he could hear Gray “banging against the walls” of the vehicle and believed that he “was intentionally trying to injure himself,” according to a police document obtained by The Washington Post.

 

If true....not so good for those trying to make an incident out of this. However, I admit that this is a rather dubious source and, as we all (well, some of us) know, media will do and say anything to cause (or extend) an outrage.

 

 

Didn't Gray have a severed spinal cord?

 

I don't think a severed spinal cord makes the story unbelievable (if that was your point).

 

Honestly, I don't understand how anyone gets a severed spinal cord in a van even if the police are brutalizing him. There just seems to be something more to this story such as prior health problems..etc. that played a factor.

[knapplc]

I think a severed spinal cord makes this story extremely unbelievable. The dude was handcuffed & in leg irons, in a confined space. It would be almost impossible to generate enough force to sever his own neck under those conditions.

 

Not totally impossible, but darned near.

 

Something external to the victim's body causing the damage is exponentially more believable, though.

[Landlord]

Really good article someone shared with me yesterday:

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/the-myth-of-police-reform/390057/?utm_source=btn-facebook-control

 

 

 

 

There are many problems with expecting people trained in crime-fighting to be social workers. In the black community, there is a problem of legitimacy. In his 1953 book The Quest For Community, conservative Robert Nisbet distinguishes between "power" and "authority." Authority, claims Nisbet, is a matter of relationships, allegiances, and association and is "based ultimately upon the consent of those under it." Power, on the other hand, is "external" and "based upon force." Power exists where allegiances have decayed or never existed at all. "Power arises," writes Nesbit, "only when authority breaks down."

African Americans, for most of our history, have lived under the power of the criminal-justice system, not its authority. The dominant feature in the relationship between African Americans and their country is plunder, and plunder has made police authority an impossibility, and police power a necessity. The skepticism of Officer Darren Wilson's account in the shooting of Michael Brown, for instance, emerges out of lack of police authority—which is to say it comes from a belief that the police are as likely to lie as any other citizen. When African American parents give their children "The Talk," they do not urge them to make no sudden movements in the presence of police out of a profound respect for the democratic ideal, but out of the knowledge that police can, and will, kill them.