I have never seen such a pronounced dividing line,as I see in this situation. The majority of black people side with the anti-cop,Brown did nothing wrong camp(not all,just most that ive seen and heard). I really think they feel an obligation to feel that way,and they are ignoring facts(as presented) while doing it. And CNN is feeding them like crazy. I have never seen a more race baiting,inciteful demonstration of media as I do with CNN. Just an observation. Cnn has stooped so low as to have a commentary about how Browns parents and all black parents always talk to their kids about how to act when approached by the law. this,right after you were seen in streets inciting riots and telling people to "burn this MF down". Im white,and I know damn well that if I go for any cops gun,then attack him I will most likely be shiot and possible killed. I don't need the race relations in my country to further crumble to teach me that,i already know.
Please enlighten the group to what the mindset,or what the pose in that picture means. Does it say this is how we role at church? Or,this is my ritual before I head down to volunteer at the soup kitchen? No,its says I commit crime for a fucking wad of cash. Your explanation is ,and ones like this is baiting. If I walk around town dressed up like a clown,you would have every right to think I am in the circus. Sorry,but the whole culture promotes this shit,then demonizes those that judge. And that doesn't just go for black youth.
I swear this shit is going to make me racist. I cannot stand the reaction from most of the black community.
It's not that the black community believes they have to feel that way, it is that they do feel that way. The black community believes they have a right to do and say as they please and if confronted the person, especially a cop, that confronts them is in the wrong. They will justify any act of a member of their community to continue to be victims so they can justify their criminal behavior and subsequent criminal protests. It is truly disgusting the complete anti-social attitude that is prevalent among the low- income black community. There is no desire to progress in the community, and then claim it is because they just don't have the opportunity to progress.
Very true. There are also some black men on youtube (Tommy Sotomayor) that call out the black community and get killed for it. But I agree with what you said. Its just easier that way,you can avoid self responcibility if you have other people to blame. Meanwhile,folks from other countries are coming in with the shirt on their back and a different language,and quickly surpassing them is schools,business ownership etc. They should be very alarmed by that.
White guilt won't force them to be alarmed. It will just strengthen the liberals resolve to support that they are victims and any condemnation of them is based on racism. I've said it before but white liberals are the black communities biggest enemy. They enable the victimization psychology of the community and defend their actions which then justifies it in the community, which keeps them from ever desiring to better themselves. Keeping them dumb and broke -- no different than slavery, but pretending they care.
Him robbing the store minutes before his confrontation shows his complete disregard of the law. The gentle giant story they tried to build up is a complete crock, he had been kicked out of his grandmothers, robbed a store and from his actions during the robbery he looks as if it was not his first time. I tried to see it from the side of Mike Brown but listening to bullshit story after bullshit story is just too much. The ridiculousness of Johnson saying Wilson tried to pull Brown in through the window. No person with half a brain would attempt it with someone their own size let alone someone the size of Brown. Try this, go sit in the drivers seat of a truck/SUV while your 6' friend stands straight up outside the window, now try to grab him by the neck and pull him in the car. Make sure your friend resists and tries to pull away. Do that and then get back to me, I want to know who got the better of the situation, if you had any kind of leverage at all. The above picture of the kid holding a gun is Joda Cain not Brown but the robbery of the store and throwing the clerk aside does give us enough to start to paint a picture of who Mike Brown is and it is not the picture of a gentle giant.
You're probably already a racist. This whole situation taught me that I'm a racist ... because I don't make excuses for people acting like animals, and I believe in this crazy notion of personal responsibility. A belief that apparenly doesn't seem to exist in the black community, judging by their overwhelming defense of this punk. Apparently That makes me a racist. Who knew? So be it.
Really, I suppose you are speaking for me then as a black person who A) understands quite well that speaking out of turn to a cop is going to end badly B) nobody I know and/or am related to feel they have the right to do and say as they please to everybody C) Don't think Brown was an "angel" D)Don't approve of any sort of violence and rioting going on in Fergueson Further more nobody I know feels they can say anything to a police officer. The police can and will do what they want. It's an absolute when your skin has a certain pigmentation. It's a core lesson of life for me. Infact, as a Black Male who has never been arrested or done anything that even comes close to being illegal. I am absolutely 100% afraid of police officers pulling me over for whatever reason, or no reason. I've been pulled over for a "non working taillight" that works, seatbelts that weren't on, but actually were. And the ever problematic there's a suspect in the area. I don't enjoy having to drive through areas where I stand out, if you understand what I'm saying, because of these sorts of misunderstandings. I keep my wallet and registration in the overhead compartment so that should I be pulled over for whatever reason there is no chance for misunderstanding. When you call the police do they have an air of disdain? Let me tell you a story, when I was a teenager a friend was jumped by a gang of dudes. He was a honest to goodness gentle giant, honor student and was constantly challenged because of it. Myself and a few other friends managed to get him and our selves out of that shit to someplace safe to call the police. We were bruised but otherwise not too much worse for the wear. At least until the police officer(s) arrived and had zero interest in what actually happened and treated us like were had committed a crime. This isn't the only story I have that's like this but first hand if I can avoid any interaction with the police I do. So Please, tell me which of the other law abiding Americans here are so concerned about the guys that are supposed to be protecting us? Am I anti police? no. What I am is pro the police probably don't want to help me.
For the most part regardless of ones color, speaking out of turn to a cop is not a good idea. There are some that have a inflated ego due to the job and even though most are good, finding the bad one at the wrong time, i.e. speaking out of turn, is going to lead to trouble. Me and my friends growing up had multiple stops by police for suspect reasons. Even at 25 years old when I first moved to Florida I was grabbed within an hour of getting off the plane because I matched the description of someone that robbed a liquor store earlier that day, it didn't matter that I was at 25,000 feet at the time of the robbery and I proved it to the officer with my plane ticket. It was all about the way I looked and them not liking that look on Miami Beach, they ended up taking me downtown to run my prints and then told me downtown was a much better place to look for work. I think the issue with this case that is causing a divide is that so many were building Brown up as some saint when he was not and much of the "eyewitness" testimony from the beginning of the incident, such as he was shot in the back or Wilson stood over him and shot him a few more times, testimony which was shown to be completely false, was a good part of the impetus for the rioting, looting and burning. There are many other incidents that would have been clearly better to shine a light on the problem of out of control officers. The problem in using this incident is the protestors lost much of the white community backing because many believe Brown was at least partially at fault and that it was a righteous shooting. Yes change is needed but this case isn't the poster child for it.
Brown was probably a bum the robbery attests to that. However there is a trigger happiness to the police. This isn't the first incident and it won't be the last. That's is where the support is needed. Not just for black people but for everyone. But you can't deny that when it comes to people with a darker skin tone there is far less slack for anything other than rote obedience. If the white community is willing to break backing for the protesters because the protesters didn't believe Brown was at fault. That implies they were initially supporting the protesters on some basis? Since the protesters always thought Wilson was in the wrong I don't get the reasoning behind the mind changing and what's it going to take to not break? When will it be enough from the police? As soon as you produced your ticket that should have been it. We can't allow our freedoms to be removed, just because. Nobody is perfect, and as long as support can be tentative for the reason you stated or any other it devalues us all. The eventuality being that everybody and anybody can, and will, be under the gun. Something wrong is going on with law enforcement in this country and it needs to be fixed before everybody innocent and guilty regardless of color is afraid of the police.
I think that's the overriding point that people miss when defending the right to be upset over the ruling; it's not that police officers aren't racist towards black individuals at times and excessively violent, it's the fact that if you look at this case that doesn't seem to be the problem here. It simply can't be that every time a black person is shot by a white police officer the community cries racism because of the difference in skin color. I fully acknowledge that it does happen in this country and it's completely wrong but if police officers can't shoot at a person double the size of them running at them then we might as well take their guns away and call it a day. http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/3937175 This is a case that I found to be horrific and I always wondered why there wasn't more public outcry over it. A young black man severely injured gets 10 bullets pumped into him before the situation was fully investigated. Truly sad and something to be upset over.
You know this is a very good post, and I agree with a lot of what you said. I have had run ins with the police all between the ages of 13-19. I'm now 35 and have had no issues since but when I was 18 I decided to get mouthy with an officer who I felt was treating us unfairly, maybe it was because I was a defiant punk, maybe because I thought I was funny or maybe because I wanted to impress my friends. Well in getting mouthy with this officer I got thrown into the squad car that was parked right next to us and cuffed for being a loud mouthed asshole despite the fact that I had broken no laws. Now the cops actually let me go once we explained to them what the real story was but I'll never forget how scared I was even though we broke no laws. Nobody wants to go to jail for anything. Now I've been pulled over 4 times in the last 10 years for speeding and have bene let off of every ticket except 1 because I kiss their ass. I tell the everything they want to hear and it works. Years later I was walking my dog in the desert , I always let him off the leash because he was a really good dog and would never venture too far away from me. Well he decided to bring me a gift, it was a vertebra. I went back to where he found it and there were multiple vertebrae there but no other bones. I called the police and they eventually showed up and this one guy just kept asking me weird shit, are you strapped, are you carrying, do you have a CCW permit. I didn't and have never owned a firearm so it was weird to me. I took them to the spot and he keeps asking me these same questions and my answers are the same. We wait for the coronor to show and he is asking me again, finally I say why do you keep asking me that. He says well your t shirt has a picture of a 9mm on it and I want to make sure we are safe. It didn't even dawn on me that I was wearing a t shirt for the hardcore band Orange 9mm. Once I explained that to him it was cool but I guess maybe I had him on edge with the shirt. It turns out the vertebrae actually belonged to a wild horse or burro , the coronor explained that he could tell from the amount of prongs on the bone but he said to an untrained eye every easily could have been confused with a human back bone. From the perspective of a white person what has me the most fired up and angry over this case is the blatant disregard for factual information by those who want to condemn Wilson. I've read witness testimony, I've read the ballistics and autopsy (the real one) and I've tried to keep an open mind on the subject but my opinion is Brown was a criminal, he was angry and he had no regard for authority. I'm sorry bt you try and take an officers weapon you are going to die, either by that officer or another officer. I do believe he tried to take officer Wilsons weapon and I do believe he deserved to die because of it. That's my opinion, doesn't mean it's fact but based on the testimony I read, the autopsy and the ballistics that is what I believe to be the case. My real issue is Michael Brown isn't and should not be treated as a martyr, he was a criminal and we know that as a fact. There are other cases around the country that could be used as martyrs. Stanley Gibson in my city of Las Vegas being a prime example of not just police failure but a failure in our mental health system. Read up on that case and tell me it doesn't piss you off he was killed and the officer never faced charges and is still collecting benefits costing the state about 30K a year. Al Sharpton never showed up in my town to fight for his rights. I also say this, I see many of my white friends trying to deny that racism doesn't exist in 2014, really? How is it I can see it but they don't?
One might say this is paranoid. Why did this story blow up like it did? If it is to highlight an issue, this story has too much ambiguity to do that. There are other stories as mentioned that would have done better. Stories that would both white and black people would agree that there is a problem. A divisive story with a lot of grey in it was pushed that played on both races' fears and misgivings about the other. Crazy?
I agree that many a police officer seem to be trigger happy, that a darker skin tone is going to bring on more scrutiny from the police and that something needs to be done on all fronts to rein in police. But the gun violence in low income, inner city neighborhoods needs to be reined in first, or at least at the same time, because while I am sure some of the killings we are talking about happened due to reactions to skin color, many more are happening because officers want to go home at night and with over 230,000 guns being stolen each year, many times more that are on the street from previous years, they know those with the illegal firearms generally have no qualms about using them. Make the sentence for illegal possession of a firearm 10 years for the first incident, get those guns off the streets and maybe police officers will not need to be as trigger happy. This is in no way saying trigger happy cops are right but you need to look at all sides of the issue to be able to address it. You mentioned that as soon as I produced my ticket that should have been it and I agree but because I kept calm I was not held for an even longer time than they did. I did not know what the police were like so I was not going to take a chance and mouth off. Not the way it should be but I knew I would not find any support from the residents of the community he was patrolling. Had Brown had the same restraint and just gotten on the sidewalk, or not robbed that store in the first place then we are not having this conversation.
