[News] The USA Police State will never satisfy its lust for beating, gassing, and imprisoning minorities
- Thread starter Charlie Don't Surf
- Start date
I'm sure he can find a job in the right shithole communities around this country.
But there was no way for him to peacefully resume being a police officer in Ferguson. Can you imagine him lining up against the protest at night? Ugh.
The NRA will love the shit out of him.
Came here to say this. It's an even bet he's going to do the speaker circuit for a few months/years until people stop caring about him then retire on a tidy sum or blow it on stupid shit. Assuming he doesn't get his ass beat now that he doesn't have a badge.
I hope this doesn't happen to him. I hope he goes out of the public eye and never fires a gun in fear or anger again.
Thinking more about it, I don't even think I hate Darren Wilson. He's a pawn in a bigger game. He's been told and trained and taught for years that black lives don't matter. He's just a product of the system, and now it's ground him to a nub, and inflicted trauma on him in taking another human being's life.
It seems nihilistic to believe people can be better than they are, and then regard the future of a person as being only a darling of a lobby group or in a 'shithole community.'
I don't think I said or implied that
I wasn't responding to you, just the general sentiment from both here (Krisken and Ashburner mentioning the NRA, and Zero Esc mentioning 'shitholes') and other sources I've read online that Wilson would be welcomed by the NRA or like-minded organisations.
It was just a general gripe about attitudes.
Ah, sorry, I was the only one that said anything about thinking people were/could be better than they are
I guess I coloured that with my first statement about thinking people can be better than they are. I included that because it seems the driving bent of many such people and sources that people can transcend their prejudices and burdens, but then also turn to easy statements about how so-and-so is awful because ____. If you want people to change, you have to accept that the flaws which you want to change don't define them as a person.
I have no idea if that's any clearer. Anyway. It was just on my mind.[DOUBLEPOST=1417330131,1417330029][/DOUBLEPOST]
I have no idea if that's any clearer. Anyway. It was just on my mind.[DOUBLEPOST=1417330131,1417330029][/DOUBLEPOST]
Yeah, I see that, it may have even been the seed that made me ultimately want to combine the two... I sometimes let things simmer in my mind for hours, days, and then come up with some sort of lengthy treatise no one wants to listen to. Tonight I happen to have inflicted upon an unsuspecting forum.
hey now I ALWAYS want to listen to your lengthy treatises
Bingo! I actually minored on this in college. Well, more 19th Century colonialism, but the same dynamic existed to probably the far extreme of oppressor and oppressed in Africa and the Vietnam region.
This is an excellent book that illustrates all the points you're making: The Colonizer and Colonized
Chad, that's a great sentiment to have, but look at the now--Wilson states he has no remorse or regrets about what happened--and apply it to the immediate future. Spokesman for ill-thought or prejudice movements does not seem unlikely, getting a job in the kind of places that call the protesters "animals" does not seem unlikely and would qualify such a place as a shithole. Now maybe, beyond the immediate future, Wilson could realize what's been going on, what he was a part of, and become like the officers who have stood on the side of the protesters in all this, maybe even realize that Mike Brown was not the Hulk nor a demon nor an animal. I don't think he's that intelligent though, but I could be proven wrong.
That said, while the potential exists for people to be better, that doesn't mean every individual is going to be better. Let's say in another 50 years we actually crack the code and the prejudice in the system, and it becomes the norm not to marginalize black people, or fear them, or whatever, that I don't have to worry my friends or my cousins will be stopped for the color of their skin, that we actually achieve that level of enlightenment at large--there will still be those individuals who are racists.
Like I mentioned earlier, those with an actual education tend to be less ignorant and bigoted, which leads to an overall drop in prejudices (especially when stereotypes start going out the window once you realize as humans we all want essentially the same things in life). You know what also helps? Being more worldly and traveling to different places. Overall the majority of the world's population is lacking in both departments, and religion takes up bulk of the slack to fill those needs.
What I've learned when it comes to people is there is no far end, yes or no/ black or white/ this or that dynamic. Everything is a scaled gray or range as to why people or cultures behave specific ways; none of which is necessarily wrong or right. This is how it's been since the dawn of man. You're absolutely on point with your discussion about change. I know plenty of people with bigoted assumptions that are still good people, and have managed to rationally discuss why their views on certain issues are misinformed. I've failed miserably with other people though, so it also depends on how much that person is willing to change themselves. Some folks are perfectly content, walled up in their false realities.[DOUBLEPOST=1417351009][/DOUBLEPOST]
In Wilson's mind he did the right thing because when you're a cop you want to come home to your family at the end of the day, and not be in critical support in the ER or dead. I wasn't there. He could be lying. All I can say for sure is the jury found the guy innocent, and as far as I'm concerned that one life that has a chance at starting over from this miserable affair. Ask any cop (Officer Charion will tell you), you've got a few seconds to make a call in a heated situation. Whether it's the right call or not will stay with you the rest of your life. I can put myself in Wilson's shoes. If it comes between me and another guy dead, I chose the other guy. Sorry, I'm biased towards my own life.
This was a grand jury. They did not find anyone innocent or guilty because the case never got to the point of Wilson being on trial. The decision was whether the case should get to that point. For that matter, the grand jury is only allowed to consider evidence presented by the prosecutor. It's why the blame is largely being lumped on the prosecutor for throwing the case, and attorneys have pointed out inconsistencies in how he handled it versus how these cases should be handled.
For comparison, in similar cases I've seen in New York, the officers end up on trial. They don't get convicted, but there's a trial.
I agree that police have only a few seconds sometimes. The issue is that I don't think things would've gone down this way had Mike Brown been white. I don't think Wilson would've assessed the situation the same way if Brown was a white guy, same build, same situation, etc. His former police force having been disbanded due to racial tensions, and some of his statements that were presented as evidence to the grand jury. I know you have a life, but have you read this thing? "It looks like a demon" or that Brown approached with his hands up and then Wilson attempted to fire again. In fact, reading this it seems like Wilson was not trained on how to use his side-arm, which is unrelated, but scary.
And that racial issue swings both ways--had Brown been white and Wilson still gunned him down, it would've been a blip of news and then gone. We would've never heard anything about this. EDIT: Actually, we probably wouldn't have heard of this as it was had the Ferguson PD bothered to notice a difference between the rioters and the protesters.
I have no idea whether or not Wilson hates black people, but it's pretty clear he and other officers view them as super scary, and that their instincts shift when they're dealing with a black person compared to when they're dealing with a white person. People whose survival instincts shift depending on a person's skin color should not be in a job where they only have a few seconds to act and their conscious mind doesn't have time to tell them to properly assess the situation, that there was no demon. Of course, this goes back to what you said to Chad about ignorance.
@LittleSin on the 12-year-old shot by police: there are protests going on for him. Maybe they'll have better luck since there's an unambiguous video of the officers pulling up and killing him.
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you might want to review the facts of what happened there, as well as the very credible claims that the "jury" is completely rigged by the prosecutors in this case
I'm late to the fucking guns thing, but I wanted to share this:
Ah, Preacher. You misanthropic, dated, yet still awesome comic.
Ah, Preacher. You misanthropic, dated, yet still awesome comic.
I.... I don't even know why I'm rising to the bait here. But I would love to have you sit through an academy, a Patrol School, and a Patrol/Field Training program, and point out ANY incidents where trainers tell you that black lives don't matter.
Charlie, I don't know what sort of life you've lived. I don't pretend to judge you by your actions, because I've never seen them. I don't pretend to believe what you've been taught, because I haven't done it. Please extend to me and my brethren the same courtesy.
I haven't known you but for the 5 years or so that I've been on this forum. The very first thing you said to me was a "not cool" comment on me calling a corner store a "Haji-Mart." Which has stuck with me since then, and I don't call them that any more. Be satisfied that your one action there has made a difference. I was so worried that I'd upset someone on an online forum that I changed an entire manner of thinking.
I don't say this sarcastically or snarkily, but that's probably how it's coming off. I'm tired, it's been a long day, and I'm looking forward to sleeping next to my wife for a change.
I hope you don't think I'm so dumb that I think there's an instructor with a powerpoint slide saying "shoot the black folks".
I mean implicitly. I mean through incidents like this. I mean through Tamir Rice. I mean through ~400 years of American History where we called black people property, 3/5 of a person, shot them with waterhoses, hung them from trees for looking at a white woman, etc.
Read that Coates piece. I think it got lost in a triple post when I was posting like a madman Thanksgiving morning or before. It also touches on a lot of the history alluded to above/talked about with @LittleSin @Mathias
And I hope no one changes their way of thinking to not upset me. I hope people change their thinking because it's extremely hurtful and mean to reduce people to slurs.
I don't know at what stage in her program, perhaps it's once field work actually begins, and maybe it doesn't happen everywhere anymore, but when one of my aunts was a police officer, it was strongly implied who to be looking at based on ethnicity, to the point that nearly 30 years later she's struggling not to pass that onto her kids. So though it may not have happened with you, it happened to her, it does happen, and for all you and I know, it happened with Wilson.
That doesn't equate to "black lives don't matter," but I can see why someone would get that picture considering stuff like the 12-year-old who was shot, or that video of the guy at the gas station from earlier in this thread, or the cosplayer who was shot in the back, or the man who was choked to death in NYC. And maybe poor training is the real rampant problem. Maybe it always has been and we're only just seeing it now thanks to social media. We can only speculate.
Thanksgiving is over, but I'm thankful that these two "heroes" and "good guys with a gun" are not great shots
From my recently-fled home of Houston Texas:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/11/...t-woman-in-the-head-because-she-honked-a-him/
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/1...-tries-to-save-girl-from-asthma-attack-video/
From my recently-fled home of Houston Texas:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/11/...t-woman-in-the-head-because-she-honked-a-him/
AND
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/1...-tries-to-save-girl-from-asthma-attack-video/
GUESS WHICH ONE WENT TO JAIL.
again, I couldn't make this up if I tried to slander the police
I think the police officers that fire at people without justification are the real assholes.
He was quoting from articles.
I was confused about where the apparent assholishness is coming from as well...?
I imagine he's alternating onomatopoetically between the sound of the report ("DOOM") and the act of cocking the hammer ("cock").I'm late to the fucking guns thing, but I wanted to share this:
Ah, Preacher. You misanthropic, dated, yet still awesome comic.
He likes the sound of that.
Yes, he does.
Of course, he has Ennis putting his words in his mouth for him, so obviously there's more to it.
--Patrick
I think most people have that power, assuming they are made out of meat.
Those wounds sound (to this intelligent but most definitely armchair-level MExaminer) consistent with a shoulder-forward oblique position, cradling his left side with his right hand (side stitch*?), or possibly even in a posture which may have suggested an attempt to crossdraw a weapon.
--Patrick
*Stitches are more common on the R side, though.
GasBandit
Staff member
Provide additional evidence against the defense when it's convenient for the prosecution (and only then), if I had my guess.
This incident could not have came at a worse time. First Michael Brown, now Eric Garner. The facts surrounding Mr. Brown have been pretty obfuscated, but people would be hard pressed to defend the actions of these cops in regards to Mr. Garner, especially with clear video evidence.
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