Why Does This Sort Of Thing Happen Over And Over Again, When A Certain Community Doesn't Agree With A Lawful Decision?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2844491/Ferguson-Missouri-Police-officer-Darren-Wilson-NOT-face-charges-shooting-unarmed-black-teen-Michael-Brown.html

[-Talbot-]

So perhaps its not surprising that people like Michael Brown become belligerent and aggressive when a police officer is barking orders at them


people like Michael Brown also become belligerent and aggressive when a shopkeeper asks them not to steal their stock.

[anotheoldgit]

sp1814

I earlier posted this question:

/// I wonder if they had only black police officers, policing the black communities, would that keep everyone happy and free from accusations of racism? ///

What do you think?

[Zeuhl]

/people like Michael Brown also become belligerent and aggressive when a shopkeeper asks them not to steal their stock./

So what?

That had nothing to do with the shooting

But perhaps a lot to do with the way the black community is routinely treated in places like Missouri

[Zeuhl]

/I wonder if they had only black police officers, policing the black communities/

in places like Ferguson, Missouri it would be reasonable for a significant number of the Sheriff's department were afro american

from what i can gather the vast majority if not all of them - are white.

that sort of imbalance is a social failure and a legacy of the not so distant past when the local police were stalwarts of the Ku Klux Klan.

[sp1814]

AOG

When you take race out of the equation, or rather the perception of racism, then you would get no protests (see police forces in the West Indies, Africa etc).

However, the Southern states of the US have racism in their soil...in their DNA. I'm afraid it's just too easy for us to sit here and say, "Oh forget everything from the past 200 years - start again from afresh" to both black and white citizens the Deep South.

[Peter Pedant]

Tee vee

INterviewer - is there anything you could have done which would not have led to his death ?

( tee-vee watchers all shout: " yeah like not shoot him " )

Darren Willson - for it is he ; No suh ! Ah could not!

interviewer: really ?


etc etc

[tamborine]

Behave like a rabid dog & get put down

[sp1814]

divebuddy

You seem to be under the misapprehension that these protests break out every time a white police officer kills a black suspect.

You know that's way off the mark don't you?

[Zeuhl]

/who sooner or later would have been in prison or shot anyway./

dive

well we'll never know will we?

perhaps you've been watching 'Minority Report' too much

and perhaps white police officers in the southern states are too frightened of black male youths

maybe they're frightened someone has found out their daddy once led a lynch mob

[Zeuhl]

^
dive
it's a community scale form of 'self harm'

as someone said on the radio yesterday; it's what people do when they are trapped in a cage and at the end of their endurance

[jim360]

No-one has said it's "perfectly OK" for these riots to happen. How sad that you feel the need to twist our words so.

[sp1814]

divebuddy

That's the problem. It's a completely self-defeating reaction, which allows certain people to reaffirm their stereotypes.

I only wish the protests had been peaceful, quiet vigils.

Actually, I wish that Brown had been arrested and the process of law followed.

[sp1814]

divebuddy

You asked:

"Let's see, have I got this right. If a white police officer shoots a black criminal, then it's perfectly OK as part of a protest for other black people to shoot black shop keepers while looting. Get real, boys."

Who has suggested that?

Was it in Fox News?

Have you got a link?

I'm not being sarcastic - I'm genuinely surprised that anyone would be crass enough to suggest this.

[jim360]

I disagree -- it is twisting. There is a whole world of difference between "natural" (or perhaps "expected" would be a better choice of word) and "OK". We shouldn't be surprised by these riots, partly because there are always opportunist louts looking for any excuse to go berserk, and partly because there is a clear sense of "us v. them" in the US between (mainly white) police and the Black communities they are policing. We should be appalled by these riots all the same. The solution, if there is one, comes from understanding the root cause. I should say, the root causes, because we can never do away with riots entirely, and I mentioned examples that show people can indeed riot almost for the sake of it. Such behaviour will never really go away. But the second root cause, deep-seated enmity between police and black people, requires a serious change of attitudes on both sides.

I expect that things are only made worse by the easy introduction of guns, but it's hard to see that argument going anywhere in the US. Still, if you insist on throwing such a lethal weapon into all such tense situations, small wonder that people end up killed with appalling regularity. In the US, in seven-year period up to 2012, about 400 people a year were killed by police; about 25% of these victims were black people killed by white cops, apparently. And, according to my source, the data is drawn from less than 5% of all US law enforcement agencies, so this figure is likely to be a gross underestimate of all police-caused fatalities.

It is a legitimate grievance, anyway, when people of your skin colour are disproportionately likely to be arrested, shot, killed, imprisoned. The response, rioting, is wholly unacceptable, but if you don't accept that the reasons partly behind the riots are legitimate then nothing will change. And things have to.

[jim360]

Oh yes, my source:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/14/police-killings-data/14060357/

[Zeuhl]

dive

/How they are only reacting like animals trapped in a cage, etc. etc. etc./

i mentioned people in a cage

why did you change that to /animals/?

Did you let your guard slip?

/arson, rioting, looting and murder rather undermines this noble argument./

No one is suggesting there is anything noble about the systematic abuse of people for hundreds of years or the anger and social instability that has caused