Once again, I find myself lucky to have lived in a city where most people looked like me.In the black community, you aren't black. You are just you. I'm not saying that is the case with all other communities but helps out.
Aww u missed out on the 'my best friend is black' or 'I'm not a racist but black people are xyz' comments
I appreciate your comments, while I disagree wholeheartedly. The point of Equal Protection is that it applies, regardless of what type of person you are. It is not just a racial argument, but a broader concept that all people will receive Due Process, whether they are saint or sinner, nun or whore. You should not have to be a model citizen to be free from arbitrary abuse of power. Further, there is a reasonable suspicion that the evidence has been 'doctored'. The time the crime scene lay unsecured and the time it took to complete the grand jury process only feed this suspicion. I cannot claim to have any particular insider knowledge of this process, but official opinion (i.e. police, public officials, etc) is by no means unanimous on this subject. I do not condone the illegal destruction of property at all, particularly those properties that are owned by local, small, working-class business owners. Nor do I condone Michael Brown's behavior in the store prior to the incident. I do not, however, equate the destruction of those 12 properties and several vehicles with the systematic repression of black communities by law enforcement in the post 1970s era (to say nothing of the previous 400 years). The protesters are egregiously guilty of poor crowd control and a lack of policing of their ranks, but that is an outgrowth of being protesters, not leftists. They lack the organization, focus and philosophical clarity of a political party. I totally agree with your statement about the false equivalency of the Trayvon vs. Michael Brown cases, however. Well said. This! In a Denzel Washington/Frank Lucas voice... "My man".
Also, I posted links to some articles involving WM being shot under similar circumstances (even though they may not have acted as much of a bully as Michael Brown did), but whatevs, who cares about facts... let's keep glorifying a bully into a martyr/innocent victim. Why would I call him a bully? I think the store video painted a pretty clear picture as to his attitude/character, which is why the video is so very relevant.
Why are we going through this again? People are not arguing that Mike brown was a saint. We know he wasn't. People are angry over the actions that were taken to this teenager by the police. It was clearly extreme as we have a man who shot and killed at least one person in PA that was not killed.
This all day. Brown may have been a bully and involved in theft etc. But in my opinion, that is completely irrelevant. What he did before this unfortunate incident should not in any way factor in to his right to due process. Can't help to obsess over what the argument would be if Brown had not done the theft that night. We all know there would be one. They were acting like punks, but this was not justified the at it looks like to me. I wish it had a chance to be presented to a court. There are several issues with the " defense " , one thing is the ' he landed two punches and I feared the third would be the end of me' schtick. Dude was huge, if he landed two punches, cop would have actually had some some damage to show for it. That, and a select other issues.. I'm disheartened that this is not allowed to due process. It's disgusting.
I agree, FG. All the "he was a bad actor" commentary is designed to make people comfortable with the violation of his due process. Everyone is entitled to it, regardless of who or what they are. Serial killers, murderers, etc. And it is particularly needed when the state shows a willingness to arbitrarily mete out "justice". The fallibility of the state and people generally demand it.
Not to mention the bigger issue, the hugest of all is that the state unleashed tanks and cops with rubber bullets on protesters. People who were peacefully protesting were met with tear gas, rubber bullets, mace, tanks and fucking drones. This is a clear example of shut the fuck up blackie and know your place because let's be reminded that Cliven Bundy and co met federal agents with fucking sniper rifles and not single death let alone an arrest. What does that scream to you people?
No Ore he fought a cop and went for his gun (allegedly) he had to be put down even though we are solely talking the word of the guy most likely to lie about the situation to save his own skin. I also direct you the ME's testimony pages 34 and 63 where its clear there was no close quarter shoot where they were struggling for the gun, no powder burns no close quarter shoot. And in the law once you lie you're credibility is shot right?
It screams to me that the lives of people the state views as worthy or like-minded are handled with care/caution and the lives of those they view as worthless (minorities, leftists, women, gays, students, working poor, etc) are not. As long as you do not object to existing social & economic relationships, you're in the clear. The state is a fundamentally right-leaning entity, seeking to preserve its power. Those rules are only for us. Hence the "new & improved" grand jury structure, with the proceedings conducted in secret and a public presentation where the prosecutor verbally refutes the medical examiner's findings and tells everyone publicly that there was such gunpowder residue and close-quarters shot fired (as he did).
The forces of white reaction are not challenging the state, they exist as a parastatal force to be utilized by the state. Rightwing militia philosophy is only against the state because they view it as not behaving "purely" enough, i.e. co-opted by Jews, tyrannical with regard to the white workers they feel it has an obligation to. They have a bottomless appetite for the state abusing the 'Other', just not allowing that abuse to include 'Americans' who they view as being the true Subjects of the Constitution and US national narrative/mythology.
If you know of more instances of this happening by all means start a thread on it. However I'm not going to pay any mind to this type of nonsense: "He says that black people only have other black people to thank if they get harassed by the police, comparing it to rolling the dice at a craps table and saying if stopping a black man didn’t yield an officer any results, then officers would stop pulling over black men." It should be clear as day how asinine that statement was.
Get real motherfucker. You know that you don't read anything. Every time that there's a political discussion on this forum, you show up spouting whatever contrarian political talking points are being spouted by right-leaning pundits on cable TV that day word for word like they're your original thoughts. Since you like TV so much, here's respected forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht putting the autopsy report in context. [YOUTUBE]tWUkBxmFUvU[/YOUTUBE]
Especially in light of all the evidence that shows that "stop and frisk" type policies do not yield appreciably larger numbers of arrests and that whites use and possess drugs in equal or larger proportions of their total population than blacks.
