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The Ferguson thread / additional race discussion

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Still trying to peddle the American dream bit are we? I didn't even think Conservatives gave that silly notion anymore then lip service

No one's forcing anyone to stay here, if anyone doesn't like this country they can leave at any time.

People that think the government was complicit in 9/11 or that think the police will one day just shoot them in the head simply for being a minority yet choose to stay here really baffle me.
 
No one's forcing anyone to stay here, if anyone doesn't like this country they can leave at any time.

People that think the government was complicit in 9/11 or that think the police will one day just shoot them in the head simply for being a minority yet choose to stay here really baffle me.

Well emigration is not traditionally a cheap and/or easy process and tbf the people we are talking about are not typically affluent.
 
The grand jury could of brought a man slaughter charge, but they chose not to. Are you saying that as a collective all the people on the grand jury are effected by bias in the form of racism, self promotion of class warfare, and a personal pro-cop agenda? What would be a better method to find justice? Ask Noam Chompskys opinion and go with that?

I am not and never was a fan of Chompsky so let's get that out of the way. Why should a cop get a grand jury to decide if he should be indicted when you or i would automatically be going to trial? Plus they always give cops the benefit of the doubt even up here so it's hardly a fair trial. Besides this just brings to light how bent the police are in America as this was hardly a 1 off. It was just the spark that lit the fuse so to speak.

And Los Cojones i don't even live in your country. So you need not worry :)
 
No one's forcing anyone to stay here, if anyone doesn't like this country they can leave at any time.

....
What Dropper said is spot on. It is difficult to emigrate and whether or not you can do it comes down to preparation and whether or not you can find work overseas. Add to that the need to become fluent in the language of your new home country. Who even bothers to learn a second language? Other than learning to tell the gardener where to put the rake, nobody does, right? I'm going to take a wild guess and say that it is a lot easier to get in than to get out. Finding steady work is not easy, and you need special skills to do it. It's beyond the ability of most people because there are so many barriers. Anyway, I hate what American is becoming so I got the fsck out. Unless people suddenly become aware and do something about it, it will be too late.
 
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The Cleveland Police Department has released edited video footage of a shooting in which officers killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was brandishing a toy gun.

In the short video, Tamir is seen walking along a sidewalk outside a Cleveland recreation center. At times he’s seen holding and pointing what appears to be a black gun. Seconds before the shooting, Tamir is seen sitting on a picnic bench under a gazebo. He then stands and walks out of the gazebo as a police car speeds onto the snow covered grass. The boy appears to still be holding the gun when both officers exit the car and start shooting.

In a letter to the community, Tamir's parents called on city officials to release the video of the Nov. 22 shooting.

“We’ve conferred with the family on several occasions and we’ve considered their wishes,” said Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams at a Wednesday news conference where the video was shown.

In the letter, Tamir's family said they were devastated.

"Tamir was a bright young man who had his whole life ahead of him. This is a tragedy in our eyes," the boy's family wrote.


[video]http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-tamir-rice-video-20141126-story.html[/QUOTE]
Another 12 year old thug put where he belongs?

I mean Christ. I used to play with toy guns literally everywhere. Parks, bus stops, etc. No one thought anything of it.

Playing cops and robbers is now punishable by death in Cleveland it appears. That was a joke, in case you took it otherwise. Point being, this whole movement isn't about Brown. The Trayvon thing wasn't even about him. This happens everyday to people of all ethnicities. It does however, happen to people of color far more often. The court isn't going to save Wilson, which is unfortunate because I don't think he's a bad guy. The court isn't going to save Zimmerman (how many post - trayvon arrests involving a firarm are we up to now?)

We need police officers who know how to deal with different situations. They're not all Clint Eastwood and this isn't fucking 1867 Nevada.

If things like this incident don't blow the lid off of the whole thing, the protesters can just go home.
 
I am not and never was a fan of Chompsky so let's get that out of the way. Why should a cop get a grand jury to decide if he should be indicted when you or i would automatically be going to trial? Plus they always give cops the benefit of the doubt even up here so it's hardly a fair trial. Besides this just brings to light how bent the police are in America as this was hardly a 1 off. It was just the spark that lit the fuse so to speak.

And Los Cojones i don't even live in your country. So you need not worry :)

Everyone goes through Grand Jury. This shows how much you know of the American legal system. We would not go automatically to trial.
 
maybe.

or maybe the system is just fundamentally broken? one man's "as autonomously from any type of outside influence as is possible for humans to act" is another's "working secretly with no checks and balances".

maybe you're done with this thread, r&m. if not, read the numbers in my post #925 and tell me the system is impartially doing its job?

it's 60 years since rosa parks and america still has a race problem. some people just don't like other people purely because of the color of their skin. you don't have to look very far in ce&p or the lounge to find examples here on bluelight. it's pervasive and destructive (and not a little ironic in a lot of cases).

alasdair

i'll play along some more as this discussion has remained fairly civil, barring a few obvious trolls.

i think i agree with you on most points.

we need to be careful to parse out exactly what we mean by "the system". so far i've tried to restrict my commentary to address the judicial side of this one particular case. like i said earlier in the thread, i have very serious issues with the increasing militarization of police forces and their propensity to use excessive force against particular subsets of the population (or any part of the population at all, really). but, in my opinion, this isn't a problem with the courts, but a problem with police culture. which, from a practical perspective, is mandated executively and legislatively, not judicially. police forces should be mandated to carry out their stated mission, which is to protect and serve communities, not to wage war against them. the courts have a very narrow range of power though, they can only make decisions based upon the existing law and the existing precedents for how that law is applied, so they're really not the proper avenue to solve this problem.

i do think the grand jury system, while not perfect, works as well as its counterpart in any other legal system, and i would be hard pressed to come up with a more fair alternative. perhaps allowing evidence to be presented by both the defending counsel and the prosecutor would clear up a lot of issues (although you're not "really" allowed to present a defense to a grand jury, in practice you kind of are, as you are allowed to testify before any grand jury that is investigating you. this isn't a right, but is SOP according to the U.S. attorney's handbook).

but grand juries are something we really just have to live with, even if i were to concede for the sake of argument that the system is fundamentally broken, as they're mandated by the constitution (at least in the case of capital, or otherwise "infamous" crimes, which to my knowledge is interpreted to mean felony crimes). i guess theoretically we could amend the constitution to get rid of that provision, but that opens up an even bigger can of worms. first of all its extremely difficult to do, and so from a practical standpoint i don't think it would even be possible. and even if we were able to, i think the process would be inevitably co-opted by partisan politics and we'd end up with something even worse. for better or worse we need to find ways to work within the boundaries of the existing constitution, which means that grand juries are just a fact of life.

essentially i see this as two issues. there's the issue of whether or not darren wilson should have been charged with a crime, and then there is the larger issue that blacks are killed by police in disproportionate numbers. there's no question in my mind that the latter is true and is a huge problem that should be dealt with aggressively. but from what i know about this case, and from what i know about the law (not being an attorney myself), i don't think that darren wilson committed any crime and so i don't think it would have been a good decision to charge him. there are plenty of other cases where officers are exonerated from crimes that they really should have been charged with, i say make an example out of those guys, not darren wilson, who (according to the evidence i'm aware of) was just defending himself. but most importantly we need to pressure our elected executive officers to mandate police forces to adopt a protective, rather than combative, role in communities.
 
What Dropper said is spot on. It is difficult to emigrate and whether or not you can do it comes down to preparation and whether or not you can find work overseas. Add to that the need to become fluent in the language of your new home country. Who even bothers to learn a second language? I'm going to take a wild guess and say that it is a lot easier to get in than to get out. Finding steady work is not easy, and you need special skills to do it. It's beyond the ability of most people because there are so many barriers. Anyway, I hate what American is becoming so I got the fsck out. Unless people suddenly become aware and do something about it, it will be too late.

So I guess it's easier to remain in America then. Personally, if I thought I could be shot at any moment because of my race I'd be ready to move elsewhere, liquidate my bank account or some a few welfare checks whatever the circumstances are and move. The way some people here talk you could be shopping for groceries, working at your cubicle, eating dinner, performing charity work, you could be doing anything and if you are a "person of colour"a police officer will walk up to you and shoot you in the face and not be held accountable. I would prefer to go through the trouble of finding work (it is hard work to find work, far easier to wait for the monthly cheque I must say, maybe immigrate to a country with a more lucrative benefits system) and learning the language than live in this constant fear of being killed, and have to deal with horrible systemic racism, persons of colour are so-powerless in this country of course if you ignore Barak Obama, Condeleeza Rice, Colin Powell, Oprah, I could go on.

I'm being facetious. If you haven't gathered already.
 
purely because of the color of their skin.

This is oversimplified. I had an ex with skin so dark that peers sometimes called her a little Black girl. I liked her for at least 6 years. I always thought she looked foreign. Exotic.

And a white man on vacation was darker than most blacks I see.

There is more to 'race' than color of skin.
 
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i'll play along some more as this discussion has remained fairly civil, barring a few obvious trolls.

i think i agree with you on most points.

we need to be careful to parse out exactly what we mean by "the system". so far i've tried to restrict my commentary to address the judicial side of this one particular case. like i said earlier in the thread, i have very serious issues with the increasing militarization of police forces and their propensity to use excessive force against particular subsets of the population (or any part of the population at all, really). but, in my opinion, this isn't a problem with the courts, but a problem with police culture. which, from a practical perspective, is mandated executively and legislatively, not judicially. police forces should be mandated to carry out their stated mission, which is to protect and serve communities, not to wage war against them. the courts have a very narrow range of power though, they can only make decisions based upon the existing law and the existing precedents for how that law is applied, so they're really not the proper avenue to solve this problem.

i do think the grand jury system, while not perfect, works as well as its counterpart in any other legal system, and i would be hard pressed to come up with a more fair alternative. perhaps allowing evidence to be presented by both the defending counsel and the prosecutor would clear up a lot of issues (although you're not "really" allowed to present a defense to a grand jury, in practice you kind of are, as you are allowed to testify before any grand jury that is investigating you. this isn't a right, but is SOP according to the U.S. attorney's handbook).

but grand juries are something we really just have to live with, even if i were to concede for the sake of argument that the system is fundamentally broken, as they're mandated by the constitution (at least in the case of capital, or otherwise "infamous" crimes, which to my knowledge is interpreted to mean felony crimes). i guess theoretically we could amend the constitution to get rid of that provision, but that opens up an even bigger can of worms. first of all its extremely difficult to do, and so from a practical standpoint i don't think it would even be possible. and even if we were able to, i think the process would be inevitably co-opted by partisan politics and we'd end up with something even worse. for better or worse we need to find ways to work within the boundaries of the existing constitution, which means that grand juries are just a fact of life.

essentially i see this as two issues. there's the issue of whether or not darren wilson should have been charged with a crime, and then there is the larger issue that blacks are killed by police in disproportionate numbers. there's no question in my mind that the latter is true and is a huge problem that should be dealt with aggressively. but from what i know about this case, and from what i know about the law (not being an attorney myself), i don't think that darren wilson committed any crime and so i don't think it would have been a good decision to charge him. there are plenty of other cases where officers are exonerated from crimes that they really should have been charged with, i say make an example out of those guys, not darren wilson, who (according to the evidence i'm aware of) was just defending himself. but most importantly we need to pressure our elected executive officers to mandate police forces to adopt a protective, rather than combative, role in communities.
good post.

why was there a grand jury in the first place? mcculloch could have just done what prosecutors do every day - charge the suspect. whatever you believe in the case, there are some facts on which we can all agree, right?

one fact is that wilson killed brown. nobody denies that, right?

let a jury decide whether the killing was legal or not. now they won't even get that chance.

but we have a prosecutor who has a history of siding with the police (source). fromthere:

"...the local prosecutor, Robert P. McCulloch, put the case to a grand jury, citizens who receive evidence under the instruction, questioning and watchful eye of the prosecutor to decide whether to press charges."

to me, that doesn't come anywhere near able to be described as "about as impartial an entity as is possible for human beings to construct".

alasdair
 
The Cleveland Police Department has released edited video footage of a shooting in which officers killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was brandishing a toy gun.




[video]http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-tamir-rice-video-20141126-story.html
Another 12 year old thug put where he belongs?

I mean Christ. I used to play with toy guns literally everywhere. Parks, bus stops, etc. No one thought anything of it.

Playing cops and robbers is now punishable by death in Cleveland it appears. That was a joke, in case you took it otherwise. Point being, this whole movement isn't about Brown. The Trayvon thing wasn't even about him. This happens everyday to people of all ethnicities. It does however, happen to people of color far more often. The court isn't going to save Wilson, which is unfortunate because I don't think he's a bad guy. The court isn't going to save Zimmerman (how many post - trayvon arrests involving a firarm are we up to now?)

We need police officers who know how to deal with different situations. They're not all Clint Eastwood and this isn't fucking 1867 Nevada.

If things like this incident don't blow the lid off of the whole thing, the protesters can just go home.

Exactly what you said. It's not about 1 incident or 2 it's endemic in the police force it's self. And no doubt there will be another Martin or Brown case very shortly sadly enough and we will all be talking about this again in a month or 2 with different names. Unless things change and the cops aren't going to change on their own that's for sure.

This is oversimplified. I had an ex with skin so dark that peers sometimes called her a little Black girl. I liked her for at least 6 years. I always thought she looked foreign. Exotic.

And a white man on vacation was darker than most blacks I see.

There is more to 'race' than color of skin.

Race was a social construct thought up in the 18th century i do believe. Black and white means fuck all and the worst violence in American history actually happened between the ruling Anglo-Saxon elite and the new immigrants coming into the country like the Irish and Italians. They where the wretched of the earth so to speak not that long ago.
 
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This is oversimplified. I had an ex with skin so dark that peers sometimes called her a little Black girl. I liked her for at least 6 years. I always thought she looked foreign. Exotic.

And a white man on vacation was darker than most blacks I see.

There is more to 'race' than color of skin.
why don't you tell everybody why you edited your post?

:\

alasdair

I forget why. I can't figure out if I like people or not. It comes and goes. I do and I don't.

And PA I don't care about your Marxist stuff. I'm pretty sure the Irish and Italian deal was religious as well.
 
The 12-year old in Cleveland was playing with what for all intents and purposes looked exactly like a real gun. No orange marking on the tip to signify it was fake, no other indicators it was a fake gun, it was treated as a real gun. Brandishing it in a public park is probably not a good idea. It's a tragedy no doubt, but there's no way for the officer to know it's not a real gun.
 
I forget why. I can't figure out if I like people or not. It comes and goes. I do and I don't.

And PA I don't care about your Marxist stuff. Thanks.
I could paste it here if you'd like me to remind you. It's still in my browser cache. What you deleted is what a lot of people think but nobody says. It's not going to surprise anybody who follows this thread, but I still think it's important to address to help understand some of the tension.
 
why was there a grand jury in the first place? mcculloch could have just done what prosecutors do every day - charge the suspect.

the way i understand it is that, in the case of capital crimes (like murder), the constitution says you can only be indicted by a grand jury unless you explicitly waive that right. the prosecutor can only directly charge the suspect (by "prosecutorial information") if its a misdemeanor or "non-infamous" felony (not exactly sure what the interpretation of that is, but i think "infamous" is interpreted to mean violent or otherwise egregious felonies like rape, murder, treason, etc)

edit --

exact text:

Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

source

------------------------

"...the local prosecutor, Robert P. McCulloch, put the case to a grand jury, citizens who receive evidence under the instruction, questioning and watchful eye of the prosecutor to decide whether to press charges."

to me, that doesn't come anywhere near able to be described as "about as impartial an entity as is possible for human beings to construct".

i do concede that it would probably be more impartial if we allowed evidence to be presented to the grand jury by both the defense counsel and the prosecutor. but then it gets into a sticky area legally because you're not really a "defendant" yet at the grand jury stage, so your rights to having counsel present are questionable. but at the end of the day a grand jury is by no means obligated to agree with the prosecutor's presentation of evidence, and they frequently do not. they were essentially created to be a check on the power of prosecutors to charge people with very serious crimes.

edit 2 -- the irony here is that the people calling for the abolishment of grand juries because of this instance, don't realize that such an action would actually serve to make the system more racially biased, as it would be removing the last real check we have on prosecutorial power. meaning that even more poor minorities (who usually cannot afford to retain proper counsel beyond a public defender, and are drastically over-represented in prison populations) could be charged with serious crimes with no check whatsoever, and would be much more likely to be convicted (even if innocent) than somebody who could afford to retain proper counsel. the entire point of a grand jury is to evaluate whether the prosecutor even has a valid case. removing them would be disastrous.
 
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My memory works strange. I started doing something else. I know I said something about choosing/preferring pretty much all races over blacks, most of the time. This is not to mean that I will take a white that I don't like over a black that I do. I would probably most likely choose a light haired light eyed type of girl (not that she has to be, but, caucasian) over a black girl. This doesn't mean I hate or with any passion dislike the black girl.

I also prefer shorter girls to taller girls. They tend to not have as much testosterone. Blacks also have higher levels of testosterone. Taller ones happen, but yea.

I may not be fully aware of why I feel why I do, and I've identified my racism sometimes as misidentified.

If you think it would help, post what I said.
 
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deleted by What 23 said:
Also, I just tend to prefer the white person over the black most of the time. If there is a white or black working a register at a checkout I usually try to choose the white. I feel more at ease around them. They are familiar. I honestly feel blacks feel the most foreign of all the groups. And don't notice the feeling of separation as much from others. I can't really place it, and I don't hate them... In fact I like many as much as I can like a human being honestly (sometimes a lot, don't get me wrong).
alasdair
 
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