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Open Thread: The death of Michael Brown and the situation in #Ferguson

Police_Shooting_Missouri-0fe27

Beyond appalling.

Please post useful links, pics, videos. I will update this post with more.

Video of demonstration, police firing teargas and rubber bullets.

Ferguson Is 60 Percent Black. Virtually All Its Cops Are White.

Elon James White Twitter feed

Google News Realtime coverage of Ferguson

 

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Shadow
Shadow
10 years ago

@Shaun

Most people use imgur.

vaiyt
vaiyt
10 years ago

Michael Brown had been smoking pot.

So do a lot of other people who don’t get shot.

(rhyme not intentional)

Bina
10 years ago

I just got called a ‘racewhore’ and a ‘liberal hack’ in the Ed Show’s twitter stream by someone who earlier said they were hoping-

Let me find it again-

“hoping they will send the military to stop these animals from burning down their towns”

Then they hashtagged it #furgeson. Can’t be bothered to learn to spell the name of the town and call peaceful protesters animals.

All in all I think the fact this person disapproves of me is a great compliment.

I just got this picture in my head. Can’t imagine why.

And on another note, funny how those who are most racist will pull the “race hustler” card on anyone who calls them on their shit. When your viewpoint is indefensible and you know it, just yell “I know you are, but what am I?”, seems to be their motto.

Shaun DarthBatman Day
10 years ago

Thanks, all. I’ll just e-mail it to the High Lord. It’s cop apologism Bingo.

A friend of mine found this.

http://m.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/18/1322691/-The-Seamy-Underbelly-Of-Ferguson-Starts-To-Appear

strivingally
10 years ago

A couple of links:

Four armed white guys arrested after a car chase.
Taken into custody. Would’ve been nice if Mike Brown had that chance.

Of all the people arrested by @stlcountypd in #Ferguson, 93% are not from Ferguson and 27% are not residents of Missouri.— Gloria Lloyd (@glorialloyd) August 20, 2014

I wonder if this will stop the people tsk tsk-ing and shaking their heads about how the comunity’s not doing itself any favours by rioting and looting? Probably not.

weirwoodtreehugger
10 years ago

I had a little run in with a cop tonight. I was door knocking for the gubernatorial race and towards the end of the evening someone got upset that I was knocking on their door and called the police. The cop pulled up to me, asked me a couple of questions about what I was doing and then left. He was polite and respectful the whole time.

I’m sure anyone reading this story can accurately guess my skin color.

Shaun DarthBatman Day
10 years ago

Apparently the cops *want* us to use profanity when talking to them.

***trigger warning***

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/08/cop-ferguson-ill-fcking-kill-you.html

Tracy
Tracy
10 years ago

Why on earth do the police have military-grade equipment? And not just in Ferguson, but in other US cities and towns? What is going on?

We’ve had some trouble with police where I live (major Cdn city) – nothing quite like this. I can’t wrap my head around it. I’m so sorry this is happening, and that it isn’t really an anomaly.

Also came across this today – the ‘affluenza’ defense.

http://www.democracynow.org/2014/2/7/affluenza_defense_lands_wealthy_teen_in

strivingally
10 years ago

Tracy: I’ll have to dig up links to back this up, but some of the reading I’ve done around this incident talks about a lot of money going into programs that repurpose old military surplus equipment for police use. In some cases the funding for such acquisitions is contingent on the use of the equipment within a year. You can see how that might cause issues when the equipment is an armored vehicle that looks like it belongs in Fallujah, being driven down the streets of a city with reasons not to trust the cops.

sparky
sparky
10 years ago

Also came across this today – the ‘affluenza’ defense.

This kid kills 4 people and gets probation because he’s rich and white.

America is broken.

pallygirl
pallygirl
10 years ago

The psychologist should be struck off from practicing, that is not a psychological condition.

strivingally
10 years ago

The stupid thing is, the psychologist is half-right – privilege insulates people from the consequences of their actions in a lot of cases. But then his recommendation for the kid to go into “rehab” perpetuates that problem.

blahlistic (@blahlistic)

Law of Eristic escalation: imposition of order = escalation of disorder.
Though I’d view it as more of a heuristic, but it’s generally a good one to remember.
The people would have stopped protesting days ago by now if the police hadn’t tried to make them stop protesting.
The racist leadership of the Ferguson PD have dug themselves a mighty hole, and I suspect it’s big enough to drown their collective careers in…that I look at with a bit of grim satisfaction.
…But it’s not just Ferguson…it’s also not oppression along racial lines alone, though that’s a big part of it.

Some of us don’t extend human empathy to everyone, and I’m not sure what to do about that.

contrapangloss
10 years ago

The Affluenza case makes me want to get off the planet, because of wrongness. Also, I ran across a headline saying the teen’s dad just got arrested for impersonating a cop.

Yay positive role models.

🙁

pallygirl
pallygirl
10 years ago

If the psychologist is half-right, then the parents should be charged as accessories to the original offence. And because there is more than one person involved, could throw in a conspiracy charge or two as well.

sparky
sparky
10 years ago

I just don’t see how anyone can look at what’s going on in America today and not see the blatant racism. And not get highly pissed off about it.

I just don’t understand.

thebewilderness
thebewilderness
10 years ago

Two very significant things happened. In the eighties the SCOTUS reversed lower court decisions regarding officers responsibility to intervene when a crime was being committed. The decisions clearly stated that force protection (just as in the military) was an officers highest priority. The second thing that happened was the creation of Homeland Security in response to 9/11. Funds have been provided by the legislature and used to purchase an astonishing array of heavy armour and weapons. If they have it you gotta know they will use it.

pallygirl
pallygirl
10 years ago

Reading the reasoning (if you can call it that), the whole affluenza thing is a red herring. What was argued is that the parents didn’t parent and so the son didn’t learn right from wrong. This is a situation that can arise irrespective of family wealth, so I look forward to the same psychologist making the argument for teens in court from environmentally poor families.

weirwoodtreehugger
10 years ago

The father of the affluenza kid was recently arrested for impersonating a cop.

Lea
Lea
10 years ago

sparky,
That’s easy. They’re racists too. The US is still chalked full of racism. Dr. MLK’s dream is still not a reality.

blahlistic (@blahlistic)

just don’t see how anyone can look at what’s going on in America today and not see the blatant racism. And not get highly pissed off about it.

Racists don’t think of the hated races of people as fully human.

You can tell them race has no genetic validity, that skin color only has meaning in a social context…and it does not compute.
You can tell them that a significant minority of “white” people have recent African genetic heritage…no comprende.

They do not extend human empathy to people not of their own race.

If a black person has a misfortune, the racist assumes that it is the black person’s fault. If the black person is innocent of THAT crime, they must be guilty of SOMETHING, because black people are naturally dumber and have poorer impulse control.
That’s the mindset.
* fumes *

sparky
sparky
10 years ago

I know, it’s just, it’s two-thousand-fucking-fourteen. We can do better than this!

We have to start doing better than this!

This has gone beyond outrageous to I don’t even know what! Unarmed kids should not get gunned down in the streets. Peaceful protestors should not be tear-gassed. And for anyone to hear about these things happening to blame the victims instead of the perpetrators because of skin color is just monstrous. And anyone who is that fucking blinded by racism that they see nothing wrong with gunning down unarmed kids in the street or tear gassing peaceful protestors is monstrous.

I’m…going to go have a beer now.

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