Police Kill Unarmed Teen In Ferguson, Missouri

[rexanglorum]

As far as the whole situation is concerned, I defer to the writer who I feel has provided the very best commentary through out this entire saga.

http://www.theatlantic.com/ta-nehisi-coates/

I suggest that everyone read the whole article but I felt that his quote by Locke and the following three paragraphs (written by Coates) encapsulate how I feel about this situation.



John Locke knew:

The injury and the crime is equal, whether committed by the wearer of a crown, or some petty villain. The title of the offender, and the number of his followers, make no difference in the offence, unless it be to aggravate it. The only difference is, great robbers punish little ones, to keep them in their obedience; but the great ones are rewarded with laurels and triumphs, because they are too big for the weak hands of justice in this world, and have the power in their own possession, which should punish offenders. What is my remedy against a robber, that so broke into my house?

What are the tools in Ferguson to address the robber that so regularly breaks into my house? One necessary tool is suspicion and skepticism—the denial of the sort of the credit one generally grants officers of the state. When Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown there was little reason to credit his account, and several reason to disbelieve it. The reason is not related to whether Michael Brown was "an angel" or not. The reasons are contained in a report rendered by the highest offices of the American government. Crediting the accounts of Ferguson's officers is a good way to enroll yourself in your own plunder and destruction.

Government, if its name means anything, must rise above those suspicions and that skepticism and seek out justice. And if it seeks to improve its name it must do much more—it must seek out the roots of the skepticism. The lack of faith among black people in Ferguson's governance, or in America's governance, is not something that should be bragged about. One cannot feel good about living under gangsters, and that is the reality of Ferguson right now.

The innocence of Darren Wilson does not change this fundamental fact. Indeed the focus on the deeds of alleged individual perpetrators, on perceived bad actors, obscures the broad systemic corruption which is really at the root. Darren Wilson is not the first gang member to be publicly accused of a crime he did not commit. But Darren Wilson was given the kind of due process that those of us who are often presumed to be gang members rarely enjoy. I do not favor lowering the standard of justice offered Officer Wilson. I favor raising the standard of justice offered to the rest of us.

 

[frenchbreadbuilds]

When a liberal calls a white conservative a racist, they usually are not accusing that person of being in the Klan or of harboring overtly anti-minority views. For the most part, when a liberal calls a white conservative a racist, it is short hand for "you are benefiting from and are complicit in a centuries-old, economic, social, political and cultural edifice of white supremacy." To white, conservative ears, he or she hears "you actively plot to harm non white people, you are probably in the Klan and are planning on bombing a black church during their Sunday school."

I think there's more to it as well. Many white conservatives not only benefit from the privelege they ACTIVELY deny it it even exists. Allowing them to condem people of color for being lazy and not hard working.

 

[rexanglorum]

I think there's more to it as well. Many white conservatives not only benefit from the privelege they ACTIVELY deny it it even exists. Allowing them to condem people of color for being lazy and not hard working.

The crazy thing is that I know a lot of white conservatives and was a white conservative and we all are and were capable of seeing racism and discrimination in every time and space aside from contemporary America.

White, conservative Millennials agree that slavery was unambiguously evil, the Civil War was started by and for slave owners, Jim Crow was evil and that MLK was a great man. Conservatives often times are pretty well versed in international news and world history and they do not deny that discrimination was and is practiced in South Africa, Rwanda, India, The Balkans, Latin America, The Middle East, basically every where aside from the United States right now. It seem highly implausible that modern day America is the only time and place to transcend institutional discrimination.


A number of my friends are upper-middle class white ethnics, Polish, Irish, Italian people whose ancestors were poor immigrants. I try to point out to them that your ancestors in the old country were poor and yet they worked very hard. I try to underscore that English and anti-catholic oppression, Russian greed and anti-Polish policies and Sicilian Kleptocracy are what kept their ancestors poor and compelled them to come to the United States.

I continue by asking them when their family bought its first home and had one of their family graduate from college. The answer is invariably after WWII, the house is VA or FHA backed suburban home and that first guy who went to college was on the GI bill. Here we are in 2015 and I try to emphasize that yes, your family worked very hard and rose economically but work was not enough. Outside factors influence financial success and that for black Americans before 1964, it was Ireland or Sicily circa 1800. Since 1964, black folks have been like Italians or Poles circa 1900, outsiders, the perpetual other shut out from home ownership and higher education.

It took emigration from near slavery in order to escape dire poverty and it took government intervention to transform white ethnics from a laboring class into a bourgeois class of people. Black people did not emigrate but they got to leave their legal peasant status in 1964 and unlike white ethnics, they have been denied access to the constellation of post WWII programs that created our middle class.

If we treated, black people how we did white ethnics after WWII and gave them full employment, access to home ownership and paid for their college education and we did that for 30 and after that time, black folks were still poor, perhaps we could then speculate that black people are thriftless and shiftless. Until we try all of that, we should just stop with all of this talk about so called black pathologies.

 

[tampadude]

I think there's more to it as well. Many white conservatives not only benefit from the privilege they ACTIVELY deny it it even exists. Allowing them to condemn people of color for being lazy and not hard working.

I am white, and I realize there are a lot of things that blacks worry about that I don't have to worry about simply because I am white.  However, I am not part of some vast conspiracy to "keep the black man down".  I didn't choose my birth parents, just as Mike Brown didn't choose his, and none of you reading this chose yours.  A person should not be proud of, nor should a person be vilified for, something that was a mere accident of birth, and a situation over which that person had absolutely no control.

Can't we all just get along?  Real talk.

 

[tampadude]

The crazy thing is that I know a lot of white conservatives and was a white conservative and we all are and were capable of seeing racism and discrimination in every time and space aside from contemporary America.

White, conservative Millennials agree that slavery was unambiguously evil, the Civil War was started by and for slave owners, Jim Crow was evil and that MLK was a great man. Conservatives often times are pretty well versed in international news and world history and they do not deny that discrimination was and is practiced in South Africa, Rwanda, India, The Balkans, Latin America, The Middle East, basically every where aside from the United States right now. It seem highly implausible that modern day America is the only time and place to transcend institutional discrimination.


A number of my friends are upper-middle class white ethnics, Polish, Irish, Italian people whose ancestors were poor immigrants. I try to point out to them that your ancestors in the old country were poor and yet they worked very hard. I try to underscore that English and anti-catholic oppression, Russian greed and anti-Polish policies and Sicilian Kleptocracy are what kept their ancestors poor and compelled them to come to the United States.

I continue by asking them when their family bought its first home and had one of their family graduate from college. The answer is invariably after WWII, the house is VA or FHA backed suburban home and that first guy who went to college was on the GI bill. Here we are in 2015 and I try to emphasize that yes, your family worked very hard and rose economically but work was not enough. Outside factors influence financial success and that for black Americans before 1964, it was Ireland or Sicily circa 1800. Since 1964, black folks have been like Italians or Poles circa 1900, outsiders, the perpetual other shut out from home ownership and higher education.

It took emigration from near slavery in order to escape dire poverty and it took government intervention to transform white ethnics from a laboring class into a bourgeois class of people. Black people did not emigrate but they got to leave their legal peasant status in 1964 and unlike white ethnics, they have been denied access to the constellation of post WWII programs that created our middle class.

If we treated, black people how we did white ethnics after WWII and gave them full employment, access to home ownership and paid for their college education and we did that for 30 and after that time, black folks were still poor, perhaps we could then speculate that black people are thriftless and shiftless. Until we try all of that, we should just stop with all of this talk about so called black pathologies.

Are you saying that blacks are currently denied GI Bill money, Pell Grants, low-interest student loans, and FHA and VA mortgages simply because they are black?

 

[frenchbreadbuilds]

I am white, and I realize there are a lot of things that blacks worry about that I don't have to worry about simply because I am white.  However, I am not part of some vast conspiracy to "keep the black man down".  I didn't choose my birth parents, just as Mike Brown didn't choose his, and none of you reading this chose yours.  A person should not be proud of, nor should a person be vilified for, something that was a mere accident of birth, and a situation over which that person had absolutely no control.

Can't we all just get along?  Real talk.

I definitely don't think all white people are racist, and I don't think there is a plot planned by white people to keep the black man down. But I do believe there are systems in place that benefit white people and don't benefit blacks.

 

[tampadude]

I definitely don't think all white people are racist, and I don't think there is a plot planned by white people to keep the black man down. But I do believe there are systems in place that benefit white people and don't benefit blacks.

Systems?  Such as?

 

[mgrand15]

Are you saying that blacks are currently denied GI Bill money, Pell Grants, low-interest student loans, and FHA and VA mortgages simply because they are black?

Re-read his post. If that's the conclusion you come up with again, I'ma pray for you. And I'm not even religious.

 

[dropten]

Systems?  Such as?

You having to ask is why you will never understand

 

[tampadude]

Re-read his post. If that's the conclusion you come up with again, I'ma pray for you. And I'm not even religious.

Ah, thanks...the sentence,

"If we treated, black people how we did white ethnics after WWII..."

can be taken two different ways.

I thought he meant "if we treated black people NOW the same way we treated white ethnics after WWII", but apparently what he meant was "if we treated blacks immediately after WWII the same way we treated white ethnics immediately after WWII".  Sorry for the confusion, but the sentence was a bit ambiguous.  Yes, blacks were hosed badly up until MLK and the CRA of 1964, and still somewhat hosed for a while after that, agreed.  You can't say the same is true today, though.

 

[tampadude]

You having to ask is why you will never understand

That's a cop out answer, dude.  Guy made a claim and I was asking for more details to support that claim.

 

[mgrand15]

That's a cop out answer, dude.  Guy made a claim and I was asking for more details to support that claim.

Do some research. DOJ just released a report on how a PD was blatantly racist. That's just the tip of the iceberg. If you're actually serious about learning, you need to take the time to learn. We can't just walk you through it.

But then again - you tried to flip that report which was proof of the racism that is deeply ingrained in that PD and talked about how it was a poor vs. rich thing. It's pretty obvious you asking for more details is just a way to deflect from the real discussion. If you're interested in learning, google. Read articles. If not, move along. No need to waste people's time with "Why can't we all get along" non-sense.

 

[jewbacca2]

It seems like everyone who defends the deemed legal actions in question is labeled racist.

 

[rexanglorum]

Allow me to clarify. From about 1930 to 1980, America built up a variety of programs that helped poor and working class people become solidly middle class or at least become comfortable blue collar workers.

This great compact consisted of a variety of programs including Social Security, mass unionization, Keynesian full employment economics, FHA and VA home loan guarantees and free or nearly free high education (through the G.I. Bill and tuition free public universities). Black people were in part or in full shut out of those programs.

Sometimes it was deliberate, the policy of the FHA in the 1950's was racially harmonious neighborhoods, in other words, don't give mortgages to black people in any sort of decent neighborhood.

Other times, black folks were shut out partially and by indirect means. For instance, black people could and sometimes did get higher education under the G.I. bill but even if they got higher earnings, they could not turn it into home equity because they could not buy a decent house at a decent interest rate.

It is also important to note that Social Security did not cover agricultural workers or domestic employees. The most common occupation for black people in the 1930's, in the South, picking cotton and working as maids. Social Security does not just help the old and indigent, it helps their children and grand children because it unburdens them financially. A whole generation of black WWII vets could have used the G.I. Bill but they had to stay home, work and support their poor parents and grandparents in the way that whites usually did not.

Many whites did not go to college after WWII but they got good, unionized, blue collar jobs in the private sector. Those jobs were so desirable that, in order to join many of those unions, one needed a sponsor, usually a father or a brother or an uncle to let you into that union and to get one of those well paid, blue collar jobs. The founding members of unions were white and almost everyone that they sponsored were also white.

While working as a longshoreman was tough and unglamorous, circa 1965, one could make enough money that, along with FHA backing, one could buy a house in a decent neighborhood. That neighborhood had decent schools and your sons and daughters could then go to college and get great, white collar jobs. Your kids could go to school because you had a good pension and social security, something that black folks did not have.

All of those benefits are accumulative and complimentary and while blacks were not categorically shut out of every single part of the great Post War Compact, the places were they were most shut out (Social Security and Housing), negated those items that they could or potentially could have accessed (higher education and wealth accumulation).



The key thing in all of this is that things did begin to change, legal segregation was ended, the CRA of 1964 got signed, unions started to open up to black people, red lining became less potent. The problems was that as the Great Post War Compact opened to black people, the more that white people started to dismantle that compact.

From 1960 through 1990 or so, a familiar pattern emerges. Black folks get good union jobs, we must destroy unions. Black folks are starting to get social security, we must start to weaken social security. Black families are moving into white neighborhoods, we must move further away from the city. Black people are starting to go to college, we must start raising tuition. Black people get into the middle class by getting government jobs, government is now the problem.

Essentially, folks like Reagan and Thatcher and Ayn Rand should love black people. Every where that black people go, it is political poison pill. White people, especially white ethnics and southerners would rather be poor than see to black people get to fully enjoy the benefits that America once conferred on white WWII vets and their children.

 

[Betonblck]

White people, especially white ethnics and southerners would rather be poor than see to black people get to fully enjoy the benefits that America once conferred on white WWII vets and their children.

Yep, the same mentality from the slavery days in which poor whites that didn't even own slaves died in the Civil War fighting for slavery still exists to this day.

The standard image of Southern slavery is that of a large plantation with hundreds of slaves. In fact, such situations were rare. Fully 3/4 of Southern whites did not even own slaves; of those who did, 88% owned twenty or fewer. Whites who did not own slaves were primarily yeoman farmers. Practically speaking, the institution of slavery did not help these people. And yet most non-slaveholding white Southerners identified with and defended the institution of slavery. Though many resented the wealth and power of the large slaveholders, they aspired to own slaves themselves and to join the priviledged ranks. In addition, slavery gave the farmers a group of people to feel superior to. They may have been poor, but they were not slaves, and they were not black. They gained a sense of power simply by being white.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2956.html

 

[anomolie]

Yep, the same mentality from the slavery days in which poor whites that didn't even own slaves died in the Civil War fighting for slavery still exists to this day.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2956.html

Great post

 

[iamjusayn]

Show us your research

Not my job to do but you can read books pertaining to ancient black history or read most of Ivan Van Sertima's books if you are really interested since it's not just one research.

Seek and ye shall find

 

[tampadude]

Do some research. DOJ just released a report on how a PD was blatantly racist. That's just the tip of the iceberg. If you're actually serious about learning, you need to take the time to learn. We can't just walk you through it.

But then again - you tried to flip that report which was proof of the racism that is deeply ingrained in that PD and talked about how it was a poor vs. rich thing. It's pretty obvious you asking for more details is just a way to deflect from the real discussion. If you're interested in learning, google. Read articles. If not, move along. No need to waste people's time with "Why can't we all get along" non-sense.

Yes, I read the DOJ report, and I find the actions of the FPD disgusting.  I can't say on here what I'd want to do to cops who violate the Constitution under their color of authority, because it would almost certainly be a violation of the NT TOS, and might even get me a visit from the FBI.

The person I originally asked still hasn't answered my question, though.  All you folks chiming in are the ones deflecting.  I asked a simple question, and I expect a simple answer, not this "victim class" pontification.  Like Tarkin said, "NAME THE SYSTEM!"

 

[tampadude]

It is also important to note that Social Security did not cover agricultural workers or domestic employees. The most common occupation for black people in the 1930's, in the South, picking cotton and working as maids. Social Security does not just help the old and indigent, it helps their children and grand children because it unburdens them financially.

Better read this: http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n4/v70n4p49.html

 

[edshoecator]

Unarmed teenager. Shot down at a distance. 

What else is there to understand?

McCullough painted the portrait he wanted which then bled onto the DOJs canvas.

Nothing was done by procedure in this case and DW had the whole MO justice system at his disposal to make sure he'd be a rich, FREE man.

 

[getyashinebox]

Man this thread is a showcase for how people let their emotions and personal biases blind them.

And the world champions of deflection are doing well in here, I see. like clockwork. Pretty sad how effective these posters are at rallying up the troops, oh well, not unlike the real world

 

[nawghtyhare]

Scandal is on and highlighting exactly what this thread is about
The white cop broke down and showed his true colors
Bruhs if that happened to my son
Real talk I don't think I could go on with life
I live everyday for my kids
To lose em
I would be lost

 

[rexanglorum]

Better read this: http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n4/v70n4p49.html

The problem with this essay is that it depends upon the official Congressional Record far too much. For the most part, that which legislators say on the Floor of the House and the Senate will be very carefully thought out beforehand. The real business of a legislative body is done in the offices, in the corridors, in private salons and over drinks at capital bars. What matters the most is said off the record.

Even if this essay's assertion is completely and totally true, the fact is that black folks still got a raw deal. Essentially Sec. Morgenthau says that Social Security had limited resources so we had to prioritize. In typical American fashion, the jobs which were disproportionately black were left out of Social Security and its effects on black upward mobility were undeniable.

 

[7thave btn 31stn33rd st]

These disparities are also present in FPD’s use of force. Nearly 90% of documented force used by FPD officers was used against African Americans.

Considering this statistic, just further proves that the use of force comes into question and most likely wouldve come under scrutiny in a trial. You can say "Well, the witnesses were coerced to lie", but when Police officers question witnesses alone with an attorney presents and take advantage of witnesses, that's ok?

 

[jewbacca2]

Man this thread is a showcase for how people let their emotions and personal biases blind them.

This. All of this.